koalathebear

minxy: I love those photos of Kyojin. He still looks very 'little' and puppy-ish (keeping in mind that my interactions with akitas of late have been with Kuma the Giant Teddy Bear How old is Kyojin now? Everyone –thanks for the tips about the water drinking. My two drinks heaps and heaps! Hoover wees like a maniac because he drinks so much! We'll fill up their clam shell but I also like the idea of a bucket (thanks Betsy!). The ice cube addiction they have both developed is getting a bit annoying. :D They know the sound of the ice cube tray and also the 'chink' sound the ice cubes make as they drop into my glass. I have one tray for them but there's one tray that in the past, *I* get all 12 cubes in my tall glass of water but these days, I look down and there's two sets of beseeching eyes staring up at me as soon as I start preparing my drink so I feel obliged to share my ice cubes with them ;) My two were more deaded from the heat I think. Our house was soooooooooooooo hot yesterday and we had all the fans going so we have resolved to buy an evaporative cooler today … I really think people are going to have to come and visit us in Canberra some time for a DOLapalooza – our doggies would have so much fun lilli_star: roo is so naughty with her nibbling … I shouldn't laugh but I do … :D It really takes a certain mindset to be a dog-owner, especially the owner of a cheeky dog. Yesterday I was putting orange-scented wax on our kitchen table top and seat tops (wood) and we were having to keep the doggies away because they kept wanting to sniff and lick. Naughty doggies. As for Elbie, you're right – he used to just hang out on the edges and he didn't really engage with other dogs. This is despite puppy classes and all that sort of thing … In the very early days when friendly Ava tried to play with him, he actually growled at her because he was just so wary He is heaps better now. He's never going to be the life of the party and bouncing all over other dogs, but he seems much happier in a group, much more comfortable sniffing and being sniffed. He still prefers people to other dogs, but he is certainly seeming much more comfortable now. I'm soooooooooo relieved that he shows no sign of dog aggression or fear – and he'll even initiate greetings with other dogs now – going up to the other dogs to sniff and say hullo. My worst nightmare is having an aggressive dog. Hoover's a funny one because he's actually not a social butterfly/life of the party either but he LOVES running around with other dogs and he seems to have a real crush on Pepper for some reason. wizzle: any more tales of destruction for us? I am still giggling over you asking your OH if he took a photo…. That's so Elbie-thread of you Whenever one of our monsters has done something naughty, I ask OH: "Why didn't you clean it up/throw it away?" He says: "I thought you might want to take a photo for the Elbie thread." Makes me laugh … niques: yes, Hoover has grown a lot. Even though Elbie's a crossbreed and probably should be larger, Hoover's going to end up being larger than Elbie when he's fully grown. Everyone was quite startled yesterday at how 'big' he was. He's not fat – just very tall and lanky and grown-up looking, especially with the bat-ears. OH and I don’t notice so much but then we look at the earlier videos and photos and see what a chubster he was – all short-legs, floppy ears and roly-poly puppiness. He's still very much a puppy though in terms of behaviour – loves his cuddles and pats, wiggles his bum with so much joy and energy that you wonder how he's still standing … It's sad that puppy-hood is soooooooooo short but I'm pretty happy with the temperament of my two and am pretty sure they'll retain puppy-ish ways that will keep them cute (at least in our eyes) cleoJ: You were missed! OH was saying: "Where's Shandy?" As evidenced in another thread, OH and I spent Australia Day afternoon geekishly playing board games. I would never want to inflict that on anyone who wasn't willing but if other Canberrans are keen to play Rock Band or board games, let me know – you can PM me if you like so that no one need know of your Geekish Inclinations …

This is me cuddling a baby panda in Chengdu - cute but very heavy. They run along the ground and yip like puppies. so cute.

I was also really happy with how well they all got along - and they were all so happy, albeit hot and tired You're right wuffles - the dogs in the smaller run were barking like crazy as was the dog in the clubhouse and our dogs ran over but didn't bark back. Quick question - OH is about to go back to work full-time so doggies will be left in the backyard alone all day which is fine but I'm trying to figure out how much water I should leave them. Right now we have two very large water dishes out there - do other people have more? I don't want them running out of water on hot Canberra days ...

Video here

wuffles - great photos here and on fb. I love this photo you took of Kuma & Hoover: I have a wee bit of video footage so will cobble that together, borrowing liberally from your photos My little point and shoot camera is crap at distance and action shots.

wizzle: I know it's wrong - but I find it hilarious that a creature so pint-sized as Genevieve is so destructive. Kind of like how Ruby has that innocent face but is so cheeky It's probably just an attention-seeking phase - she may get even MORE chewy after Wee Wizzle arrives!! In other news, I normally keep an eye out for the Kelpies in the rescue threads but this little fellow made me so sad tonight. He really has the most sweet and mournful face ... I'm also horrified to see that some evil creature dumped their 17 year old dog at the pound. Who does that???

kyliegirl: Elbie walks beautifully on a loose leash at obedience class but pulls like a maniac when we go for walks. For a while I was using the ezywalk harness which helps a lot but it doesn't solve the fundamental problem. As I know his pulling frustrates me like crazy and I end up pulling too hard on the leash, I've been going back to absolute basics with Elbie. Basically for his dinner time, I go out with his dinner in a treat bag and just walk up and down the street, constantly changing directions. I pretty much do this every day ... He has been walking beautifully and not pulling. If I try to go off our street he'll probably pull again so I'm just going to keep working away at him on our street until he gets into the habit. It's not exciting for him because I'm sure he'd like to go on a walk to new places but he seems happy enough just to be out of the house or the backyard The other thing you could do is go onto an oval - it's much easier to change directions there than on a street. We found with Elbie, even though he is a champion puller, that we take one step in one direction then quickly change directions then change again. Also, every time Echo looks up at you, you reward. The other thing that helps with Elbie is to change the pace up - I'll walk then jog a couple of steps then walk, change directions. Don't be frustrated. Seriously, loose leash walking and heeling are the two things that we have found most difficult with Elbie. Other people might find it easy but we really struggle and Elbie's very smart and compliant usually. With heelwork, he has a bad habit of not sitting right at our left side - he'll sit out slightly at a 45 degree angle. Also it's hard to maintain his attention without the use of treats. For the loose leash walking, he wants to dart out ahead! With Hoover it's a lot easier. He's a lot more food-focussed and compliant than Elbie. It's easier to get his attention. When Elbie's out, he sometimes snaps into a strange trance where he can't hear us, won't even look at us and I have to stop and refuse to move until he gives us his attention. With Hoover, just calling his name is enough to make him pay attention. All dogs are different .... Elbie's been much better to train at tricks, he imitates well and he has a natural understanding of language but he's a shocker on a leash and he's hyperactive. We love both our monsters but they present different challenges that keep us on our toes. ETA: Elbie is 11 months and loose leash walking is still eluding us - and it's not for want of trying. We have been working pretty hard at it! Also, random link - these Doberman puppies are soooooooooo cute Not sure how I feel about cropped ears though.

Ha if there are going to be that many of us, maybe i will bring snacks along. From memory there are picnic tables there

:D He did ask me why I appeared to have some sort of violent objection to sleeping in but I can confirm that he will be there because he is extremely conscientious about his dog duties. He's also keen to see Hoover's first chance to run around on a HUGE grassy field :D Given that he'll probably just be chasing around after the doggies, unless Mr Wuffles really wants to come you don't have to force him into it just to keep my OH company I've been standing around a few times when someone has walked by with a dog, looking all happy and proud of their dog and someone has commented on how fat the dog is. I feel mortified on the owner's behalf and worry about my own doggies. Niques - Urgh ... my two also attack those tags first - on beds, toys whatever... we try to remember to cut the tags off first before we give it to them.

Yes, poor Elbie. So trusting of his humans. OH was saying: "I wonder why no one told us that we were teaching him to do 'beg' wrong?" I said that they were too busy laughing and the two of us thought that they were laughing because it was cute. OH does a hilarious impersonation of Elbie's beg in which it either looks like he's had a horrific fright or he's surrendering very energetically.

I agree. The dog parks here seem pretty nice and I like the Forde one a lot. We were at Tillys in Lyneham a few weeks ago and our instructor and a fellow-DOLer had their dogs with them. Not only were they very welcome but staff came out and asked if the dogs wanted water

Tonight, OH brought the doggies to pick me up from work again and we stopped by Melba shops on the way home. I ducked out to get some stuff and OH went to the petrol station next door meaning that the doggies would be alone in the car when he was filling up the petrol (2 cm away) and also alone in the car when he paid for the petrol (10 metres away). I warned him to be on the lookout for any angry DOLers who might come and smash the windows of the car... We've taught Hoover how to beg. He took a really long time to learn. Elbie learned by imitation and learned quickly. Hoover took ages so we resorted to watching youtube videos. As a result, Hoover does the 'traditional' and 'classic' beg style and we have realised that as novice owners, we have taught Elbie the somewhat spethal beg style that makes him look like he's surrendering or flailing about in the air. We used to wonder why everyone laughed at his 'beg' and now we know why. Tonight when we were looking at Hoover's beg, OH asked me: "Do you think we even knew what 'beg' was supposed to look like when we taught Elbie how to beg????" Poor Elborino Video .

I know exactly what you mean. I don't think I could handle more than two dogs in our house, two is a perfect number for us. Initially it IS a lot of extra work but pretty quickly, it isn't that much extra work once the dogs get settled. We were taking Hoover out for regular night time toilet stops for a few weeks but he was able to hold it through the night quite quickly and both of them are very happy to 'sleep in' these days so there are no more early morning wake-up calls because of the dogs. My OH was probably cursing my desire to get a second puppy when he was standing out in Poo Corner at 3am in the midst of a loud pouring thunder storm … Also, two dogs equals twice the poo so clean-up can be quite hard work ;) It's a real possibility especially if the second dog is a young puppy. For that reason we make sure the dogs do have lots of 'apart' time. We might take one out for a drive and leave the other one at home, they have separate training sessions as well as joint training sessions. Sometimes I take one out for a walk while the other is playing in the backyard with OH. We've made a real effort to do training 'near' each other so that when we start at obedience class, the dogs aren't distracted during class if they catch a glimpse of the other dog – you can see some 'siblings' lunging at one another instead of concentrating on class. The other thing about training is that OH and I split dog duties 50/50 – that goes for home duties and also obedience classes. Some people are amazing and are able to take one dog to one class and the other dog to another class on another day or even do all their dogs at one class but I couldn't do that so I'm lucky that OH takes one dog and I take the other for the classes. In any case, photos of your current puppy would be most welcome

Probably dropped on my head as a child

We have one dog who is 11 months and one who is 7 months. We made the decision to go for two pups this close together because it fit in well with time commitments, a suitable second puppy came along when we were still able to put in sufficient puppy prep-time. I wouldn't get a puppy to keep the first one company, it's a definite benefit but the main thing is whether you want a second dog and if you have the time and energy to give it equal time. We found puppyhood pretty exhausting … Because our dogs are of a similar age and breed, they have SUCH a great time playing with each other. They run around like total idiots and then will snooze for hours on end. We were very conscious that they could wind each other up and become more attached to each other than to us so we have worked quite hard at making sure that we do work "alone" with each pup, that they come when called even if they're playing with each other and that they get training separately as well as together. We watched them carefully when they didn't know to see how they played together – to make sure they didn't play like crazy all the time etc and when we were satisfied with that, we let them be them alone together. If they were too wound up, we probably would have segregated them when we weren't around. They seem to have pretty similar biorhythms so it's pretty funny to watch one of them go and nudge the other to initiate play. Hoover is definitely the pesky younger brother but Elbie loves having him around. Elbie's not yet fully trained in a formal obedience sense but he is fully trained from a house manners point of view so Hoover learned very quickly from him about where to go, when to go etc. We had minor slippage when we first got Hoover because Elbie didn't want to toilet when Hoover was around but he got over that really quickly and now they both go out there and toilet on command. For obedience class, OH will be Elbie's handler and I'll be Hoover's handler although when it comes to 'at home practice', we alternate so that we are both training each dog equally and there is consistency. In getting our second puppy, we also spent a lot of time talking to the breeder about the puppy with a right personality to fit in with Elbie. Hoover likes to play and leap like a crazy puppy but in general he is a lot more chilled and laid back than Elbie so they mesh together very well. We know that having two dogs of similar age means that we're likely to have two old dogs at the same time and probably two losses at around the same age but … in life there are no certainties and guarantees and our two certainly have such great times together and we haven't regretted getting Hoover for a second. It's definitely something you have to think long and hard about. One thing we were shocked about when we got Hoover was how long ago Elbie's puppy hood seemed – there we were back to taking the dogs out every 2 hours for toileting … Fortunately that's all behind us and they both sleep through the night, don't jump on furniture, don’t chew anything they're supposed to and are house-trained. With Hoover, we were able to do a few things right that we should have done with Elbie but didn't do because we were just so new to the dog ownership thing Good luck whatever you decide! :p

wizzle: still giggling about how innocent Genevieve looks amidst all that destruction. Elbie always looks so guilty that even when it's Hoover that's Done Wrong, our first instinct is to blame Elbie. Genevieve looks angelic! lilli_star: great photos of Ruby – she looks so mournful and cute with that towel. Also, is that your bed she's lying on in this photo http://i738.photobucket.com/albums/xx30/ja...uby/sealroo.jpg ? She looks so comfy and sleek! Her seal-ears are great. I have to remember to take a recent seal-ears shot of Elbie – he looks so funny when he does it. Also that photo of Ruby's friend across the fence? That is sooooooooooooo funny! Theirs is a Forbidden Love … KA: Elbie and Hoover are fine in the car – no destruction but we have a lot of nose prints on the window. Also, the last time we were in Dominos, we were watching through the glass as someone was standing outside the car blowing kisses at our doggies. Clearly a dog-lover but I'm sure our dogs didn't know what to make of this stranger kissing them through the glass. Max#1: I remain unrepentant. I also eat McDonalds, sometimes! :p I prefer Pizza Capers (recommended by CleoJ) but Mama Koala and OH prefer Da Dominos. I fear our doggies will be doomed to fenced in dog parks … although our club grounds when no one's around are pretty huge and I think that the dogs will be able to run and run and run to their hearts' content. I don't doubt that our dogs would come back when we call … they just might not come back immediately :D Niques what is the frog look? Hoover has developed a really bad habit of just flopping out on the ground wherever he is. The worst is when he lies directly under my swivel chair and OH warns me: "Careful – Hoover's head/chair/paw is under your chair!" clastic: I wonder what the angry DOLers would say to me if they knew how long Elbie was in the car when he was sin-binned during HH's Saturday classes ... There was one class she forgot all about him and the poor doggie was there almost the whole lesson - windows down and with water, though ;)

We could send the Akita and the Big Black Dog in first to clear the path for us ... together with some dramatic music ... Neither of my two have sufficient gravitas, I fear ... 9am is fine for me!

Snook - I know you were responding to someone else but thank you so much for your post because it says what I have been trying to say in a very inept manner. We do not like leaving our dogs in a hot car and we definitely don't and I agree that the situation described by the OP seemed very reprehensible. When we do stop by the local shops, the window is down and we are a few metres away. While one of us could stay with the dogs, it's part of us training Elbie not to whinge and complain just because he's left behind. We would never want to tether either dog at the shops although it's something a lot of people do. We like to bring our dogs with us where we can because we were told from the start that Kelpies like to be with their people - even if it's just a quick visit to the shops or hanging out in the car with us. If anything arose, we can always see our dogs so if one of us was delayed, the other would be able to see to the dogs. I know it's always possible that something awful could happen that killed us both but it's as likely/unlikely as both of us dying in our sleep and Hoover being trapped in his crate at night as a result ... If someone's a genuinely responsible dog owner who cares about his/her dogs, you don't automatically become an irresponsible/bad owner whose windows deserve to be smashed in just because you occasionally leave your dogs alone in the car under controlled conditions. As I've mentioned, for longer shopping trips, the dogs are at home or one of us will actually take the dogs out of the car and hang out on a nearby bench. I realise that in some people's books, the above makes me a bad dog owner but I guess I am just trying to explain why we do the things we do and why we think it's fine and why it isn't quite the same as someone who leaves their dog in the car for ages unattended in the heat ... I appreciate that some people do not agree with what we do and would not themselves do it but I think that that should be a different matter from assessing conduct as cruel/irresponsible/illegal etc ... We all love our dogs here so I think we're all a little sensitive to allegations that we're not doing the right thing by them ... In any case, I will drop the issue now because I now regret posting in the first place

Eek. I certainly hope that was a photoshop job! Thanks for the feedback on the dogs. We're switching Elbie to adult Royal Canin once this current bag runs out and I was thinking of switching Hoover at the same time.

Max#1: You are hilarious ... I'm not a huge fan of Dominos but OH is Canadian and it's the closest we can get to the pizzas from The Great Frozen North Honestly, I am not in favour of leaving dogs alone in hot cars but the while pious, holier-than-though sanctimonious 'tude makes my fur stand on end sometimes ... DOLers are not all the perfect dog owners All The Time that they claim to be and the occasional bit of Not So Good dog ownership doesn't instantly consign one to one of the Nine Levels of Dog Owner Hell. Actually my idea of Dog Owner hell is being stuck with a few of the more rabid DOLers for eternity .. yoicks ...

In any case, I have no interest in arguing because I actually don't think poor doggies should be left alone in hot cars as a general rule. If you remain aggrieved, then the animal cruelty number for Canberra is 6287 8111 and I am happy to provide you with an address for service should you elect to pursue a civil claim In any case, let's compromise - I promise to never, EVER leave my dogs in your car unattended on a hot (or a cold) day. Edited: because I actually don't feel like arguing ..

lilli_star: I hope this week is better for you - let's put our week of shocking days behind us Canberrans - Australia Day AM Doggy Date sounds great. Will it be at BDOC? I'm so keen to get Hoover and Elbie running around a large field with other dogs. Hoover might run until his heart explodes :D KA: Elbie's starting lunging at cars, which is not cool :D We have an appointment with K9 Steve next month for training tips so I'll definitely be raising this then. I'm not sure why cars have suddenly became so interesting to him - he was never really that enthralled before. ;) Yet another reason why L.B. is never going off lead outside of a fenced area ... As to barking dogs, OH said that the other day, the dogs were barking like loons. Why? The neighbour thought that it would be a good idea to stand by the fence and hold up one of his dogs and say: "Look at Elbie and Hoover". The dogs on both side of our house bark a lot and we're just lucky that Elbie and Hoover seem to have become desensitised to it and don't bark back. There have been so many times when I've heard Elbie barking, run to the door to yell at him, only to discover Elbie's sitting right next to me inside and that he's been framed by a neighbour's dog Once I went to the door to look for Elbie only to discover that Elbie was standing next to me also peering out the door to see what I was looking for :D wuffles: gorgeous photos of Ava. She seems to be getting more black pigment - perhaps she wants to have even more Dramatic White contrast kyliegirl: The soft crates are huge and our monsters have one crate each! We've been training them to hop into the same one though in case we ever need them to share a crate Echo's paws look huge in that carrot photo. Soooooooooooo cute. I am such a fan of huge paws. I don't think our two have ever eaten carrot - must try it. They've developed an addiction to ice cubes, though. Every time I'm at the freezer getting ice for my drink, when Hoover hears me twisting the ice cube tray, he comes and stands next to me with "feed me" eyes. It's very cute. Our two are ok with bags and bin bags but the sound of the neighbour wheeling his bin back and forth makes them bark a little bit sometimes - probably because the sound is amplified and it sounds like it's actually in OUR driveway Max#1: I thought Elbie would never learn to sit for pats but he's almost there. He will actually stand for pats although he puts his ears back and he gets a very desperate: "Please pat this pitiful seal" look on his face and if you don't pat within 3 seconds, he might jump up :D SammieS - welcome back. I always love the photos of Asti! Soooo cute, funny and expressive. wizzle: that is so hilarious! I always think of cavs as being soooooooooo well-behaved but little G has such a naughty little face ... I, too am trying to transfer our two doggies onto adult food but OH is holding out. I think he's offended by the thought of anything we do being influenced by DOL Also, if anyone wants to report me to the RSPCA for cruelty to my dogs, the number is 6287 8111 but given their limited resources, I'm sure they've got better things to do :D Hope everyone had a great weekend. It's been very toasty here but it's cooling down a little for the evening ...

There are two of us. Holy Dog. As mentioned above, barring some cataclysmic event that kills the two of us dead on the spot, one of us would always be able to duck away to see to the dogs. In any case, we can see our dogs - there is a glass door in Dominos. This is surbuban Canberra, not Sydney. I'm not even sure why I'm having this incredibly ridiculous discussion when absolutely nothing you say is going to stop me having my dogs wait the five minutes in the car in the evening on the occasional days while we pick up our pizza from Dominos 10 metres away ... Good grief. But look, it's fine - I'm sure everyone thinks that they're a better and more responsible dog owner than everyone else.

Because it's seriously only five to ten minutes and if you knew the Florey carpark, you'd know that we can see them at all times. If it the shopping trip is likely to be any longer than that, then they get dropped home or one of us hops out of the car with the dogs and sits on a bench under a tree ... Given that what I'm referring to is a short side-trip along the way home, there's really no point going home and then coming back out again. Besides, OH and I enjoy hanging out together no matter how brief the duration Anyone who knows us personally knows that we would never do anything that puts our dogs in harms way. We even go home early if there's a thunder storm because we worry about the dogs. I'm not trying to say that people should leave their dogs in a hot car, I'm just trying to say that the fact that some of us do have our dogs alone in the car for a few minutes now and then in strictly controlled circumstances during summer evenings does not necessarily make us bad owners but if someone does want to come along and try to smash our car window in then Lay on, MacDuff.

Still making my way through the book. There were some very interesting chapters about the use of the Kelpie for cattle, goats and poultry. While Parsons thinks that Kelpies can be very good with cattle, he is very much against the Kelpie becoming and being used as an aggressive, hard-biting dog. He thinks that the Kelpie should be used for more humane management of cattle - control without violence. He quotes a cattleman and Kelpie breeder from Queensland who says about the Kelpie: "Other important canine traits for working large mobs of cattle under all climatic conditions include the basics of stamina and heart. No breed can match a good Kelpie for these traits nor do many other dogs possess that individuality that allows for a stockman to swell up with pride when his dogs somehow find and return with that feral herd in the gorge when all seemed lost, or 'speaks' from a blind gully to bring your attention to a paralysed calf down with scrub tick." An interesting and provocative topic in Chapter 31 is "The versatility of the Kelpie." On the one hand, Parsons is very proud of the fact that the Kelpie can be good at agility - on the other hand, it makes him worried. "On the face of it, there is nothing untoward in using Kelpies, even working-strain Kelpies for agility, or any other dog sport for that matter, except that it is not the purpose for which the breed was intended." He discusses the relative rareness of the Kelpie in agility in the UK but how more dogs are becoming successful and there is pride and wariness in the way he discusses the matter. He quotes someone named Chris Vaught, a former president of Working Kelpies Inc (USA) who says: Parsons isn't convinced. While he has no doubt that dogs of many working Kelpie strains would be able to master Agility work and equal the performance of Border Collies, he says: Then he says: "... both myself and the 'hardheads' already referred to, wonder whether the stage has been reached when some form of abbreviated description should be allotted to genuine working dogs; that is, dogs that have shown herding ability. This may appear to be a radical suggestion but we have had enough problems with the bench/show Kelpie without being saddled with rising numbers of working Kelpies being hived off for dog sports. I have nothing against these sports and I like very much the idea of people using dogs constructively and for pleasure so long as it doesn't lead to a downgrading of working Kelpies to the long-term detriment of the genuine breeders of these dogs." Parsons clearly loves his breed a lot, hence how heated he gets about it. He thinks that the working Kelpie has suffered some 'huge' blows over the years due to a variety of factors. He concedes that the popularity of dog sports may mean that there is a potential to sell many more Kelpies but he's afraid that it will affect the reputation of the genuine working Kelpie: "But I know some Agility dogs will be owned by people who will never have any association with livestock, and the last thing I want for the working Kelpie is another group of suburbanites flogging off dogs not selected for working ability as genuine working Kelpies." The section about Kelpies as pets aka companion dogs is interesting. He doesn't like to use the word 'pet' because he 'hates' the word pet used in reference to Kelpies ... Interestingly he isn't rabidly opposed to the notion and thinks that Kelpies are no more difficult to look after than other breeds so long as they have the run of a decent-sized backyard and/or is exercised regularly. "Don't be deterred because someone has told you that a Kelpie would be out of place and unhappy in a backyard situation. It is entirely possible to keep a Kelpie happy in such a scenario by giving it time and reasonable exercise. But don't neglect it. A Kelpie will forgive almost anything but not forgetting that it exists."