koalathebear

I've been persuaded. I'm going to buy a furminator for the monsters. can anyone recommend a good brand/good place to buy one online? thanks!

We don't have problems with flys around our wheelie bin because the lid is pretty secure and the bags of poo are tied securely. The problem arises with the spot on the ground after we've collected the poo - the residue is attracting flies in the heat. This morning it sounded like a swam of angry bees, I was so grossed out.

Thanks so much for the suggestions all! No children with fly swatters here, just OH, myself and two Poo Machines oakway - we do at least 2 clean-ups a day, sometimes more and the poo is put into biodegradable bags which are then binned. The issue isn't with the poo itself, but that the flies are still congregating to The Area Where The Poo Used To Be. I've tried rinsing the area with hot water but that's very temporary and I don't want to pour detergent/tea tree oil or anything dog-unfriendly there in case it makes them sick or makes them not want to go there. Sounds like a fly trap may be the way to go.

Does anyone have any recommendations for dog-friendly fly repellent that we can spray in the yard? We do a clean up at least twice a day, but in the heat, even with regular clean-ups, "Poo Corner" gets swarmed with flies, which is pretty disgusting. We want to spray something there that isn't toxic to dogs but also doesn't discourage the dogs from using Poo Corner. Thanks heaps in advance!

We have a shed near the fence and front gate. This is the gap near the fence: This is the gap on the other side near the fence: Recently, our naughty Kelpie puppy Hoover (6 months old) has decided that he likes exploring and wants to sidle between fence and shed and between gate and shed. It's not a huge deal because there's nothing there that can really hurt him but it's just not a habit we want to encourage. We're having a really hard time trying to 'fence' it off though because given the location of the gap - there's nothing to tie wiring to. On the gap near the gate, we can loop ties around the gate but there's nothing on the shed side to tie things to. On the gap between shed and fence, there's nothing at all to tie anything to so either we stack up a huge mountain of stuff in front of the gap (not really possible) or we find some other way to block puppy's entrance to the fascinating Space Behind the Shed. does anyone have any suggestions for our next Bunnings run? Thanks in advance!

Thanks for the book rec, poodlefan - I've just bought it off amazon.com for my Kindle even though my To Be Read pile is dauntingly large right now. I was thinking of this comment from you on Friday when I was having a chat with a colleague from work. Some times I help out and make little music videos for rescue dogs and a colleague at work was a bit surprised that I'd recently made a rescue dog for a bull breed (pit bull/amstaff ... you get the picture). She said that no matter how much she tried, she could not help judging someone when she saw that they owned a bull breed, particular a pit bull. For her, no matter how well socialised and beautiful the dog was: "Why on earth would you want that kind of dog when there are so many other beautiful kinds of dogs in the world." I tried to explain that everyone has different tastes and what she finds unbeautiful in one dog is beautiful to someone else and vice versa and the diversity and the ability to choose was important. Her point was that BSL had a great deal of merit because certain bull breeds were bred to be fighting dogs and it was in their genetics. I pointed out that all breeds were bred for something but that didn't mean that that was all they were good for and it certainly didn't mean that they should be wiped out. She didn't agree with me but she didn't mean it offensively, she just said that she can't help looking at the people and thinking: "What is it within you that makes you choose to own something like a pit bull/staffordshire bull terrier/amstaff etc and not another dog?" I pointed out that I'm against BSL because of the whole 'where do you stop' argument - today it's pit bulls, tomorrow it's going to be other large breed dogs but apparently she has the same views about rottweilers, dobermann and other 'menacing' dogs. I am guessing that it's largely because her breed of choice (border collie) is pretty safe and is hardly ever likely to be the target of BSL. It was an interesting albeit sobering discussion. It would be harder to find someone more educated than my colleague - Rhodes scholar from Oxford, studied and worked in think tanks, worked in Europe and the US, has witnessed first-hand the 'adopt a pit bull' movement in NY ... but I guess she was just being 'honest' with me about her instinctive 'feelings' she had when she saw certain dogs. I know she wasn't trying to argue or debate, just tell me how she felt and why. I was trying to think of whether I make any rash 'judgements' about owners when I see certain types of dogs. For me, I've just seen so many large dogs that are well socialised, friendly family animals that I am not likely to judge the big dogs. I think I have a bias towards medium to large dogs. I was bitten by a German Shepherd as a child and a maltese as well (not my fault - they were neighbourhood marauding dogs that would chase people on bikes and on foot) and I think I hold more of a grudge towards the maltese than I do the GSD.

I think I need a cue, too because as soon as I put the phone book down this morning, both dogs were pouncing on it with front paws Hoover seems to do the swivel very naturally whereas Elbie wants to stay put so it's going to be interesting to see how they both progress. Hoover makes me laugh because as I'm trying to put the book away, he keeps trying to put his paws on it and look up at me with his googoo "feed me" eyes.

I meant to post back ages ago but things got away with me. Thanks heaps to all for their help. We worked away at it and we have managed to teach Elbie to stand on the spot without moving forward. A rather dark video is - you can see that Hoover also wants to get involved and Elbie has to ignore him Knowing what we know now, we have been making a lot of effort to teach Hoover 'stand' so that he doesn't automatically sit when he's supposed to stand like Elbie used to do. It's a bit nuts how difficult stand can be if your dog is a sitter ... Elbie will also stand from a drop, too. Getting him to stand still for pats is still a challenge but he's getting better.

Thanks all. We just started today so today all they're being asked to do is put the front two paws on the phone book. Elbie sometimes thinks he's supposed to play bow on it for some reason. I've managed to stop Hoover dropping now. Problem now is that he doesn't want to get off the phone book to let Elbie have his turn. I think we have a second phonebook lying around somewhere so they can have a book each. As some of you have mentioned, we don't actually seem to need a cue word for it because both of them are very keen to put their paws on the book now. I'll try moving them up to the side step tomorrow to see how they go... It seems quite tricky which is probably why I've never attempted it before

We have just started teaching Elbie and Hoover rear-end awareness using . Elbie in particular is very responsive to voice commands so I am wondering what cue word people use to get the dog to step up onto the phonebook. Step? Up? I want to use a word that's not going to be problematic or confusing so I was wondering what other people have been using.Also, Hoover has a bad habit of plonking both paws on the book and going into a drop position (both paws still on the book). Should I only click and treat if he is still in a stand? Thanks very much in advance.

What is it with our poor Kelpies and their bald spots?? Hoover's mange went away ages ago so his bald patches are long gone, thank goodness. Skye is so gorgeous - I just love the red and tans soooooooooooo much RallyVally - I LOVE Toby's colouring. He's very sleek and handsome. OSoSwift - thanks for that. It's good to know. I love the redness of his coat so would be sad if he stayed white. In other news, this is my high energy working line Kelpie puppy enjoying the Canberra heat Yes, that is dog hair you see on the ground. Our Dyson can't keep up with the shedding monsters.

I am rather partial to labs but OH (who is a cat person) said that if he was going to concede and go doggy, he didn't want a generic-looking dog so absolutely no labs/golden retrievers or border collies. He liked Kelpies because they're relatively rare and unusual in Canada - he is Canadian. I know a lot of Canadians and Americans who have never heard of a Kelpie. I've said: "Do you realise how ubiquitous Kelpies are in Australia, though?" But to him, they're still unusual. To be honest, even in Canberra - we don't see that many Kelpies around, especially purebreds so they still feel rare to him. I guess we'll have to go to the country or something. I have no recommendations I fear because I'm always going to be biased towards the Kelpie.

Out of interest, is there any difference at all health-wise between a chocolate colour-lab and the blacks and creams? Just curious because of how heated the threads about blue Staffordshire Bull Terriers seem to get, how it's bad to choose for colour etc and that sort of thing. From memory, some threads indicate that chocolate coloured border collies are also less likely to conform to standard. Chocolate seems quite trendy these days - there are a couple of at our dog school but no one seems to get as irate about colour requests for labs as I've seen with other breeds. I have Kelpies so pretty much most colours are acceptable except the dilutes

That's why I'm interested in the different levels of tolerance. Some people say that they'd never tolerate their dog putting teeth on human skin ever even if no skin is broken, some people seem to be prepared to put up with a lot more. I figure it can't hurt to have it more thoroughly assessed to see if the aggression is manageable - is it perhaps health-related etc ...

Thanks I'm not worried because he's not balding - he has plenty of fur. He just looks a bit funny because suddenly he has what looks almost like a white ruff around his neck.

poodlemum - is that a wall????? At first I thought it was a box! How on earth did they manage that? The worst dog-induced damage that we have had to the house was when I mistakenly left a brand new Hoover unattended while I had a quick shower. I came back and found that he had gnawed on the blinds: Since then there has been no other dog-damage to the house fortunately

Our red and tan monster tricking his owners into thinking that he's dead

I think once in a while, a dog comes along that doesn't need to be trained at all and that dog makes the people who owned it think that all dogs are like that. For us, we have to work pretty hard at both our dogs, some things come much easier for one than the other. Elbie took longer to house-train - probably because we were new to it. Hoover had more accidents in the house but he was much faster to house-train. Elbie went through a nipping/mouthing stage at about 11 weeks, Hoover has never been a mouthy dog. Elbie's very, very quick at learning tricks. Hoover is good but usually takes longer. Someone we know at the whim of one of the young kids bought a maltese/Shih Tzu cross. Within a week they were seek of it and now the poor thing lives alone in the backyard, ignored except for being fed its meals and being taken for a walk every few weeks. It's mouthy, it barks at everyone and it is a complete monster but absolute no effort was made to train it to start with, which is so sad. When we were showing them photos of our dogs they were kind of horrified at how much thought we give our dogs let alone how much time we give them. Here is a photo of Hoover from yesterday. OH saw the strange sleeping pose and had to go and make sure the Kelpie wasn't dead. Despite the dog door and the ability to go inside, Hoover very much enjoys snoozing outside in the sun and wandering around in the grass chasing butterflies and staring at the birds. I was reading all the talk where people are proudly announcing that their dogs are 100% inside dogs and think about how miserable my dogs would be if they were inside all the time. You have no idea how often we look out in the yard and one of our dogs is in a Ferdinand the Bull type pose, enjoying the sky, the birds, the grass and the flowers. They LOVE being inside but they also LOVE the yard.

Thanks for the insights. I guess I'm more disconcerted by the dog that seems fine and then snaps rather than the dog that is openly aggressive because arguably it's easier to identify and manage (make decisions about) the openly aggressive one. In any case, it must be a terrible situation to be in because by all accounts, the dog is most beloved.

Thanks so much for doing this

I love you guys At work when I talk about Christmas presents for the dogs or even taking them to dog school every Sunday, one of my colleagues looks at me like I am a Crazy Person and then I wonder: "Am I a crazy person because I dote on my doggies so much?"

You are so lucky! Mine are poo machines!!! They poop at least twice a day. We have to do poo picks twice a day as a result. I'd feed them less but they're actually very lean as it is!

He probably could last because he seems to have the most ginormous bladdder EVER because when he wees, he seems to go and go and go ... but it's the principle of the matter. We don't like being defied! We can generally make him wee before bed but the 'rule' has always been at about 11.30/11.45pm, both doggies go to poo corner and do number #1 and then number #2. Since the Wet Season began, Hoover's been refusing to do number #2s at night. We absolutely won't let him go to sleep without doing number #1 but sometimes we get sick of standing out there with a stubborn Kelpie Monster and just toilet him first thing in the morning I'm not sure if he's afraid of something out there - he's usually fearless, but I've noticed that lately his ears have been back and he has been staring very warily into the corner like something's there. Hopefully all will be back to normal when the wet goes away ...

Ziggy is so cute - there's something so sweet and lovable about border collies - whether at the puppy stage or adult stage! Both our dogs were using their Nina Ottosson Plastic Dog Brick from wagsalot.com.au tonight. Elbie has more finesse and it takes him just over a minute to get all the treats out, video .Hoover's a bit of a smasher and it takes him almost 2 minutes. Video .I'm relieved that neither of them just takes the easy option to flip the tray

Gosh, my greedy guts dogs are so not fussy ... When we first got Hoover he wasn't big on Evil Hills so we gradually switched him to Royal Canin, Elbie, too. By the time he was switched over though, he'd learned to love the Hills. Our two will eat anything. Elbie will sit, drop, roll over, and do half a dozen more tricks for one measly bit of kibble - he is so cheap! They love kibble, they love beef, they love anything. Just the sound of the food drawer opening has them bounding from across the yard/across the house. If they think you have food, they stare at you mesmerised like spaced out zombies. It's a bit funny. What I find hilarious is that given how food-motivated Elbie is, that he sleeps in the kitchen in an unlocked crate a few metres away from several bags of Royal Canin - one of them opened albeit notionally sealed. I guess he knows he'd be in Big Trouble if he decided to raid the Royal Canin The Comfortix tablets smell horrible but they'll even gobble those up as long as it's with a handful of food. The only thing Elbie struggled with once was egg-shell and that was my fault. I read on DOL that a complete raw egg was good for them so one night as a treat they got boiled rice, extra lean minced beef and a raw egg - but I didn't crack up the shells small enough so Elbie had difficulty and OH had to squooosh up the shell with his hands. OH was grossed out by the meal so took photos Clastic - we've been moved in since June last year and we have two rooms full of boxes :D Some of those things have been in boxes for years and years and moved from Hong Kong to Beijing to Melba #1 and now to Melba #2. Some would say why bother to open them ETA: Also, Hoover is a weirdo. I've mentioned before that all of a sudden, he doesnt' want to be toileted before bed. We have to bribe him to eliminate!!!