koalathebear

Although the antlers were worse for him Look how stoic he is. Ears back Ears unfurled Doggies Long-suffering Elbie :p

Christmas Tree Christmas Tree and Doggies Christmas Tree and Costumed Doggies Hoover does 'are you shy' while wearing reindeer antlers Hoover's not very impressed with the antlers Even less impressed with the Santa hat Elbie is underwhelmed by the Santa hat, too

Thanks for the well-wishes all. We have no fixed plans for Christmas this year because of obvious reasons but we're still trying to get presents and still aiming to at least have a lunch together for the sake of spending together time where possible. This situation is not a surprise in any way, we quit our jobs and travelled back to Australia for this but no matter how prepared you think you are - you can never be completely prepared ravenau1: Hoover's much better now thanks. He seems to have recovered nicely from his surgery. Both he and Elbie abide very conscientiously to the 'leave it' command so he has left his stitches alone and there seems to be no redness. He was allowed to return to 'boisterous' play yesterday although he won't have his stitches out for a few days. We also have to make sure he doesn't get left outside when it's raining because he can't get his stitches wet. Sorry Astrid is being fussy about her food. What does her breeder recommend? I'm lucky our two are greedy guts and will eat anything. How about beef and rice? Or chicken and rice? those are particularly delicious to doggies. Congratulations on harmonious Cat Dog Relations though!! wizzle: So far no attacking. After the initial 'leave it' which extended to tree and presents, the two dogs have left the tree alone. Then again, we keep bags of Royal Canin on the ground and the two doggies leave them alone. They're very good that way - but have Other Faults lilli_star: you're lucky you missed the kerfuffle. It was really awful and I was cringing a lot. Glad to hear that you're on holidays now! And Roo and Cat, too! You'll have to keep us posted. Ravenau, sounds like you're doing well with Astrid, if she's already doing so well with the cats. She's a very cute puppy! cleoj: any footage of you and shandy dancing? I saw one photo of you guys in the newsletter but that's it! I'd love to see you both dancing! As for training, we still cannot get Hoover to 'beg'. It was so easy with Elbie but Hoover just stares at us blankly :p kumaakita: good to have you back. The thread has missed you!!! Are you going away for Christmas or will you be around Canberra? Does Kuma actually get to eat the bacon and cheese rolls or just sniff them??? niques: One of the presents for the doggies is from me - a bubble machine. I'll make sure I get photos and video when they first see it. I'm sure Hoover will be curious and Elbie will be wary. We got our little handheld Dyson recently and Elbie ran away but Hoover loved it and thought it was a new toy and started pouncing on it like a cat. I'll keep you posted about the other presents ;) Oh the photos are gorgeous. Your camera is great. What a beautiful face. Doggy Muzzle crinkle!!! ;) betsy: that is a gorgeous photo! How did you get Ziggy to stare ahead like that? Is it food? Max#1: Elbie is obsessed with what we have come to call Elbie Ball. He's getting really good at it i.e while he has one thing in his mouth, he bats a tennis ball around with his legs. His aim is remarkably good and then when we kick it back, he stops it in the same fashion a hockey goalie would. He's very good - except he's so obsessed with the game he could play it for hours. wizzle: those photos of Genevieve are lovely and I'm particularly taken by the close-up of her little nose when she's chewing her favourite ball. It's soooooooooo cute. I've decided I love doggy noses. Another shot of Hoover chillin' under the tree Elbie in the car - he likes to rest his head on OH's shoulder. He's wearing a car harness but we find that giving him a bit more length on the tether makes him happier. Hoover the cockroach with the muppet mouth Elbie and squeaky steak From the time we got him, Hoover has always been an angel in the car Hoover has a cheeky face sometimes Elborino * We just took some more Christmas photos of the doggies tonight. Will see how they turned out shortly ...

The dogs are totally comfy around the tree now. In fact, we frequently come out and find Hoover stretched out beneath the tree next to the doggie presents :D So far they've made no attempt to open the presents even though there's food in there – including (apparently) an edible Christmas doggy card ETA: We haven't got around to actually properly decorating the tree yet

OH has managed to teach Elbie a 'lengthy' dead. See .

Thanks for all the well-wishes. It's been a sad week and the doctors are making arrangements to move Papa Koala out of the hospital to the hospice which is a real hope-killer (i.e. they're not going to bother treating him any more) but we are doing the best that we can given the circumstances. ;) Oh I've threatened to send Elbie to the pound or "free to a good home" so many times. max#1: I know what you mean about having a dorky-looking dog. I've read so many of the 'conformation' posts on DOL and when I see Elbie running around and the wonkiness of his ears and the way he stares at us, I know that there'd be heaps of DOLers who would send him to the glue factory for his features but I just love him to bits and he's so funny ... There's something about how 'happy' a dog can look when it stares at you with its mouth open and tongue hanging out Those photos of Mini Max are soooooooo cute. Those little white paws ... Elbie was incredibly cute as a puppy. He's not cute anymore but we still love him Some photos. Elbie enduring a cuddle He's always so long-suffering. Doggies - Hoover's ears are still drooping post-desexing. Kitt when he was fully grown. He also had wavy hair on his butt. Hoover (the chunky monkey) is 15 kg and Elbie's about 17 kg. Looks like Hoover's definitely going to be the bigger dog eventually. OH makes me smile. He always swears he's a cat person but then I come home and found that he has not only bought Christmas presents for the doggies but he had wrapped them and labelled them. If you wonder why the writing is so strange, it's because it's apparently 'Santa's hand-writing'. The round present on the left says 'doggies'. ETA: Elbie has more presents apparently - they're on the other side of the tree. :D Also, Hoover had an 'accident' tonight and wee'd in the study. He seems very ashamed of his accident and is now hiding in his crate.

Kelpie ink The number is Hoover's Working Kelpie Council tattoo, the circle below is his desexing tattoo. I was a little apprehensive about the second tattoo in the same ear because when they did Elbie's ear, it was a bit of a mess of dots and dashes but they did a nice tidy one for Hoover and in the same colour so it's all good

Unfortunately they're busy so don't really have the time to let him calm down ... but yeah, once he calms down he's as placid as a cow. He is especially excitable at the vet's. They've ruled out an ulcer or any nasties fortunately. A few weeks ago, Hoover had disgusting thick green goop in his eye. It was like mucous and I'd get it out with my fingers and be pulling it out and it would be like a long worm The vet saw him immediately and said it was probably conjunctivitis and gave him meds which fixed the problem pretty quickly and his eyes are fine now. Elbie started getting reddish eyes and eye goop - although nowhere near as disgusting as Hoover's had been. That's why we took him in today for a check-up. Fortunately it doesn't seem too serious and we're hopeful the meds will fix him up. He's ok with getting teeth checked, the needle, the poking and prodding. He even endures the thermometer up the butt with equanimity but I guess the eye-poking was a bit beyond him. OH was full of sympathy - he hates having his eyelids flipped at the optometrist so he was cringing when Elbie was having iodine paper stuck in his eye.

OK, thanks - will definitely try this. He will stand still for us to smear ointment into his eyes but having the physical object of the saline dropper would be good practice. Are there special saline drops that I can buy for dogs?

Elbie gets very excited at the vet. There's nothing we can do to calm him down. From the time he was little, the vet's assistants used to wind him up a LOT with the loud excited voices, boisterous patting and rolling and that continued through to puppy classes and now unfortunately the vet's is associated as a place of 'I am happy and excited and I will not be quiet'. That being said, he will generally sit and stand still for examination and the vet can vaccinate him with no problems. At home, we can also put eye ointment in his eyes with no problems, clean his eyes, open his mouth, look at his teeth etc. The problem was today we took him in to check out some redness of his eye plus some persistent eye goop. Hoover had something similar a few weeks back and some ointment cleared it up but he seems to have passed it onto Elbie. Elbie was put on the table and then had to be held still as the applied small strips of paper coated with iodine to the front of each eye! Ouch! The paper was being stuck right on the front of the eyeball and then she'd push his eye closed to disperse the iodine. Elbie did NOT like this at all. After she did the first eye he would not let her do the other eye. He was wriggling like crazy and in the end it took three people to hold him and they were only able to put a tiny bit of iodine into the other eye before giving up. THEN the vet needed to take a look at each eye with a large big black light (purple UV light or something). She was able to look into his first eye but he wriggled too much for her to see the second eye. They tried to do it to him on the floor but he backed into the corner while she was holding the light up near his head. He didn't bark, growl or look angry – he just didn't want any more eye-poking or lights. He was given some medication but we were told that if it persisted, we'd have to bring him so that he could be sedated so that they could do a thorough check-up. They made it sound a bit like it was unusual for Elbie to be resistant. As mentioned he's ok with injections and we are able to desensitise him to a lot of things but I'm not sure how I would go about desensitising him to having something shoved INTO his eye like that. Any suggestions???

Yes! So far, my two have been chewing away on the tuffy and they use it for tug and it's still fine. I recommend them ;)

OK, I've given my 2c in the Hugo thread for what it's worth - recommended that dju PM Troy and delete posts #150 onwards and that she, urbandog and huski and whoever else take the dispute off DOL because they're not going to resolve the issue here and it seems a shame to have that thread deleted. Arguments like that are never resolved online because in Internet 'fights' there are always going to be a few spectators with mild blood lust who have no interest in the outcome of the argument and don't care about either combatant - they just enjoy watching the fight. Thanks to all for their well-wishes. Papa Koala's been pretty good these past two days and the visits have gone pretty well. lilli_star: I was horrified at the thought of a Daddo being in the Anne series. WTF? And when Anne dressed up as a nun and when they set it all during World War II when Anne's children were going off to World War I in the series I was thinking - is this fan fic on acid or something???? Kevin Sullivan had a lot to answer for given that the first two were so good. Gilbert Blythe was probably my first fictional crush and I would have married him had it been possible. As for PEI - I want to go there and also Muskoka - which is where The Blue Castle is set. OH promises me that we shall one day. As for the guilt - not ridiculous. I feel guilty about my pups all the time :p I'm glad she's been all right and fingers, toes and eyes are crossed that she'll be fine during your holiday AND that you don't worry so much about her that you spoil your holiday!!! wizzle: Ah - the royal and aristocratic Lady G and Hoover, the farm dog from working lines! The royal and the commoner. Too funny I think Lady G would be horrified by Hoover's inelegant kangaroo-legged sprawl when sitting. Everyone always laughs at him when they see his 'sit'. :D That's great news about your OH being able to take a break. I wonder if he'll end up dog-sitting or baby-sitting for most of the time! ;) Max#1: I find it funny that culture has a lot to do with the do's and don'ts of pregnancy. In the West, you avoid things like seafood but the Chinese will still eat seafood but believe you shouldn't eat ice cream and things like that when pregnant. Even funnier, in my old office, whenever a woman got pregnant, you always knew because she immediately started wearing a lead-lined pregnancy smock! They look a little bit like what you wear when you go and have an x-ray. I am really sceptical of how effective they really are and wonder if it's not just a money-spinner for the manufacturers. When one of my colleagues was pregnant, I saw her holding a cushion in front of her stomach! To protect the baby from radiation! That same colleague was also wearing sunglasses one day to type and I asked her why she was wearing sunglasses and she told me it was to protect the baby! Wow. What an inauspicious start to the thread ... but how prophetic. It was a funny thread, too in an awful kind of way. :D Well if we took everything on DOL at face value, we would never desex our dogs (but also desex them), we'd feed them nothing but raw and barf but also kibble, we'd never take them to dog parks, we'd never take them out before they were full vaccinated but we'd also take them out everywhere before they were vaccinated ... Too confusing. :D Glad Max liked the dog park! He would have been a truly joyful and cute sight to behold. As for the compliment - thank you I think! :p I swear English is my first language ... or maybe Australian is. When I was in China, the Americans and Brits said: "koala doesnt' speak English, she speaks a local dialect called Australia". Mostly I try to stay out of those Train Wreck posts but depending on my mood, sometimes I have to say something :D OH begs me not to post but then he'll just sigh. He asks me why I bother and why I care. Sometimes I'm not quite sure myself ... ravenau1: glad Astrid is ok. Don't worry about the vet visits. When we first got Elbie, we felt like we were living at the vet. Check-up and vaccinations, then there was a cut paw, then ringworm then something else. With Hoover we had mites and goopy eyes so it's definitely something a lot of us go through. On the plus side, both are pretty hale and hearty now It IS worrying though. Yeah ... not a big fan of being told I'm cruel given how spoiled and happy my two monsters are. The crying will die down. Both of our puppies whimpered a lot when we first got them. You could start with stints where you do stuff just in view and then slowly move out of sight. She's still just 'new' so will still cry a bit What a cute, cute little puppy - I love her face, her shiny coat and her doleful puppy eyes. wizzle: :D That is so not lady-like of Lady G!!! I am appalled!! Hee! Given how common Kelpies are supposed to be, I wonder why I almost never see them in Canberra!!! I've seen all of 2 red and tans in Canberra/Bredbo and OH has seen one at the markets! Niques: Awwwwww..... It shall now be a rule that all must carry a camera around 24/7 We all miss far too many cute moments from our pups. :D :D Sorry, I don't mind to make light of your pain but poor you and poor beast betsy - I too have reported that thread. I hope they just delete the bad posts and leave the rest of it. The photos of Hugo are too cute to delete. And to end the post on a positive note and with photos .. I found some photos of our family dog Kitt as a puppy. He was a labrador/border collie. Tiny in these photos but he grew to be a big, big boofer and lived to be 11 years of age.

Yoicks! I am beginning to think that Dju has havoc follow wherever she goes, be it thread or puppy class . ETA: Just from recent memory alone, I recall the dog restraint thread, some irritation on the Spitz Thread, some irritation on the Life of Hugo thread and then there was the one where she unsuccessfully tried to direct ire at loungefly on this post. Yoicks. She must have been a mischief imp in a previous life. I'm sooooo glad the Elbie thread has never gone like that ... :p Salutatory to reminder to me to be careful about what I post online.

Thanks 4kelpies. Good to know about the ears. I was a bit baffled because for a while, both ears went up then the right ear drooped again and the left ear stayed up. Then after the desexing (when poor Hoover's left ear was tattooed for a second time), his left ear drooped, too. The left is back up but the right is still drooping. I'm not sure if it will ever make it's way up again given that it was only up for a few days at the start. I suppose farmers never tape their Kelpies' ears? Keeping him quiet has been a challenge. We've been able to do it by keeping Elbie outside and Hoover inside. Then when we let Elbie in, too, we'll watch them closely or crate Hoover. So that Hoover isn't too bored, we've been bringing him with us to the hospital and while I'm visiting dad, Hoover and OH sit downstairs on an outside bench. He saw lots of stretchers, wheelchairs, noisy cars and trolleys today and got lots of pats. Then we took him to the shopping centre and while I was shopping at the supermarkets, OH was outside with Hoover and he apparently got lots and LOTS of pats from adults and children alike, also was near noisy shopping trolleys and the carts that move the trolleys around. He seemed to love it and so was nice and tired when we brought him home Can't wait until Wednesday, though when he can go back to being his usual active self.

I know - but it is extremely hard to find consensus on most things even vaccination and desexing. At the end of the day, I've found a vet I trust and I'll believe in her (of course not blindly) for my dog's health. I know that there are many on DOL with a great deal of suspicion about vets but let's face it, if you trawl through the threads here, you'll find that the persons that fall in the category of 'stupid' or 'clueless' include: vets, pet shop staff, joggers, ordinary people, family members and ... *gasp* other dog owners ... Even if you think you're doing everything right by your dog you can't be sure. I am not feeding barf or raw, I desexed my two relatively young ... I probably have done a dozen things that lots of more rigorous DOLers wouldn't do but that's fine. So far my two are ok (touch wood) and if anything goes wrong, I know that there are people out there to who I can turn. ETA: I am at the oncology ward a lot more often than I'd like and there are heaps and heaps of people there who would swear that they had done everything right in terms of nutrition, exercise and meds their whole life and yet they still end up there ... Also, things go in fads. I wouldn't be surprised if years from now we discover it's bad for our dogs to be fed so and so, to not be fed this and that. This wonder drug will turn out to be carcinogenic, that wonder shampoo will turn out to be evil. All we can do is the best we can now with the information we have available to us.

Good grief ... that's just mind-boggling...and insulting. There are a lot of misconceptions involved around all breeds of dogs I'm afraid :D Astrid is beautiful and with all the time, love and care you're going to put into her, I'm sure she'll help to dispel a lot of the Bad Press there is around Dobermann. To be honest, in recent years it's rottweilers and pit bulls that have received the most press - it's not like Dobermann are that common so it's a bit weird that people would be so wary I know it's not the same thing at all, but almost every time I mention that we have Kelpies, people have to remark a little incredulously about having Kelpies in a suburban home blah blah blah as if we're a bit cruel/stupid or something. Elbie is very high energy but he is a total couch potato at home. Anyone who has met Hoover will attest to the fact that his eyes make him look he's been opiated or something. The first week we got Elbie he kept standing between our feet - I think it made him feel secure. Sometimes standing on your feet can be a dominance thing but that's unlikely given how young Astrid is - perhaps the ground is too hot wizzle: Gorgeous photo of Lady G - she always looks so imperious. She must be royalty. I'm so sorry to hear about your recent scare but I'm glad that things are all right now. Are you still exhausted all the time? Will Mr Wizzle be able to stay home more after baby comes or is he still going to have to travel a lot? I can imagine how hard it's going to be to juggle Lady G and Wee Wizzle on your own! Or do you have relatives who will come and stay with you? I had a very long and refreshing nap on our day bed. Hoover napped a metre away in his dog bed. We haven't been flooded here but in Queanbeyan they were flooded a few days ago and people were evacuated! So far the doggies have still been good around the tree. We try to stop them running around and rough-housing in the tree-room as we don't want them colliding into the tree. lilli_star: Thank you. Alas, Papa Koala was feeling quite poorly today. He had considerable physical discomfort and his mood was very low and he kicked me out of the hospital room and told me never to come back Of course he doesn't mean it but it's never nice to be told something like that. Ah well, I'll go back again tomorrow and hope it's a better today. M'sieur Hoovér is doing very well today thanks! We didn't want to leave him at home in his crate in case he licked at his stitches (we've seen how efficient he is at unpicking stitches on his toys) so he came along for the car trip and OH sat downstairs outside the hospital with him as I was visiting Papa Koala. He was extremely self-possessed - got a few pats, saw many many people walking past him. People of all colours and shapes, people with walkers, people in wheel-chairs. It reminded me a bit of when I was asking if it was ok to get a puppy who was already 3 months of age and people were warning me off Hoover because of insufficient socialisation and someone had said that he should have been exposed to people of different races and people in wheelchairs. Well today all that happened and he seemed very calm. He's not too fussed by his stitches and the few times he's tried licking at them, a "leave it" command is enough to make him stop. He has one more painkiller to be given tomorrow but he doesn't seem doped out or troubled at all. The only difference is that he still smells a bit like the chemicals in a hospital ... We haven't let him run around crazily like he normally would and he's taken out on leash to toilet. Play with Elbie is supervised and sometimes we put them on either side of the baby gate and they sniff at each other wistfully. Urgh. I still have all my wisdom teeth and haven't had problems with them but know how annoying they can be. What will you do? removing them is such a pain ... literally! Love Megan Follows ... although Anne 3 was the worst travesty ever. Have you read "The Blue Castle" by LM Montgomery? Probably my favourite LM Montgomery novel ever - hilarious in parts and full of pathos in others. Trivia - Colleen McCullough was alleged to have plagiarised the novel for her novel "The Ladies of Missalonghi". I've been working on a new jigsaw puzzle this week and it's very soothing ... one frustrating thing was that while I'm making great progress with Elbie on his loose-lead walking, he has taken to lunging and barking when we pass other dogs. This is really weird because during dog school, controlled greetings/weaving between handlers and dogs and also walking past other dogs and handlers is something that we do almost every week and he is fine! Why is he therefore lungey when out on walks, particularly out the front of our house??? Perhaps next time we have a Canberra DOLer get-together, some of you can help me desensitise Elbie and do some 'walk-bys' on the footpath to try to make him stop lunging. Also, covering my eyes because the next thread to blow might be this one. It started so nicely but given this earlier post, I have a bad feeling about how the thread will end up :p

Good morning. Looks like Genevieve has a bit of growing to do before she fits in those trousers! Pepper steals bras and G claims men's trousers - how very George Sand of her! How frustrating! I suppose the plus is that he is still eating so it's not entirely worrying .. but still ... When Hoover was refusing to eat Evil Hills, we were trying heaps of different foods - irony was that by the time we settled on Royal Canin, he had grown to like the Hills! I'd love to be able to feed them Barf or a fancy raw diet but we just don't have the time or energy to get so complicated. Our dogs are a HUGE part of our lives but they're not our entire lives so we have to do lots of other things, too ... This is good to hear! Hoover had tiny little puppy teeth when we got him and they were sooooooooooo cute and ineffectual. Now they're falling out and he's getting proper teeth ... Elbie seemed to get a mouthful of huge pearly whites over night, it was very disconcerting. ;) Hope all are going to have a nice weekend! We're hoping to be vegie ... haircut this morning, visit Papa Koala in the afternoon and then chill out with doggies for the rest of the day - while keeping Hoover quiet and non-rambunctious! ravenau1: missing any sleep yet?

Thanks all for the comments and well-wishes. Little Hoover is much better today. He appears completely recovered and clearly wishes we'd let him run around outside with Elbie. Funnily, his ear has come back up again - yesterday it drooped as if to reflect his sedated frame of mind. Poor thing now has two tattoos in his left ear, his existing WKC tattoo and now his desexing tattoo. I hope Maggie feels better soon, too - I know it's tougher for the girlies i.e. she seems normal again but it's going to be hard to keep her quiet ..

Calling me silly is somewhat discourteous but I'll excuse you given that you were posting at 2.33am and perhaps somewhat sleep-deprived at the time. I'll also attribute your sleep deprived state for the reason you didn't actually read my post to see that I did research the issue extensively and printed out material to discuss with my vet. I take my responsibilities as a dog owner very seriously but although in my early days on DOL I placed a lot of weight in what I read on DOL, in time - I realised that as with many things, it's best to obtain information and counsel from many sources and also from people who actually know my dogs because information on DOL can be confusing and contradictory - if people followed DOL religiously they wouldn't even know when and if to get their dogs desexed because there's no consensus on even that ostensibly fundamental issue. Our vet never said that she has never heard of the risk, she told us that in her experience she had never seen an adverse reaction and if one had taken place, she certainly would have. The method of heartworm treatment is completely a matter of personal choice for each owner and I would never be so uncivil as to denigrate someone else's decision so long as they had considered the information available and made an informed decision. To recapitulate my existing comments in terms that may be more fathomable to you - I am not advocating that other people use the heartworm injection. I fully appreciate that there are dogs out there who have suffered terrible side effects. I am just stating that my two dogs are on the heartworm injection and they are fine. No matter how silly you think I am, my dogs are neither sick nor dead from taking the injection. These are the facts and at law, I am entitled to state them even if you disagree with me. Although the Australian Constitution does not expressly protect freedom of speech or expression, the High Court of Australia held in 1992 that a right to freedom of expression, in so far as public and political discussion were concerned, was implied in the Constitution. Believe it or not - that extends to online fora such as dogzonline. I'm hardly running the risk of imperilling anyone given that there's hardly a dearth of comments pointing out the drawbacks of the injection. ;) There are also many other dogs out there who aren't affected and if you're lucky enough to have a dog that can take the injection - why should you be precluded from using it if it's appropriate for your personal circumstances? The fact is that most if not all medications carry with them a degree of risk. Just take a look at this. It sounds awful doesn't it? It hasn't stopped countless women around the world electing to take the contraceptive pill despite the fact that there are many unfortunate enough to suffer serious side effects - as mentioned, it can even lead to deaths. Picking medication for oneself and one's pet is about assessing one's personal circumstances and needs. Again, to continue the comparison to the ubiquitous Pill, some women can't take the Pill so use barrier methods. Some women don't like the pill and opt for a contraceptive implant under the skin which releases a steady stream of etonorgestrol into the bloodstream over a course of up to three years. What women use will vary depending on their own personal preferences and condition. If you wish to wrongly ascribe my actions to that of poorly educated and misinformed ignorant dog owner that's of course entirely your prerogative. In terms of your slighting comments about my vet, she has never been anything but kind, courteous, helpful and well-informed. A most sharp and marked contrast to your manner towards me.

Both of my dogs are on the heartworm injection and have suffered no ill-effects. One is a Kelpie one is a Kelpie/Border collie cross. As you've pointed out, it's definitely frowned on here on DOL. I had long discussions with my vet over it - she's very experienced and it's the same veterinary surgery that also looked after our old family dog (although with an updated team of course). I read up extensively about the pros and cons of the injection, I read all of the posts here on DOL about it and printed out a lot of the literature and spoke about it with the vet, particularly about the fact that Collie breeds tend to be more sensitive. I even bought a box of chews through the vet because DOL had scared me off the injection at first. In all her years, she hasn't had any problems with it (including collies and Border Collies) and at the end of the day, as much as I respect the opinions of people here, I chose to follow the advice of the vet who I know and trust and in whom I will place my dogs' lives if anything goes wrong. The vet and her staff have never let me down so far and for tiny emergencies, they've always squeezed us in no matter how busy they are, they've accommodated inconvenient timing requests and they don't always charge us for every little thing. She and all her staff are personally fond of my two dogs and from a purely mercenary point of view, they'll get a lot more money out of us if the dogs live than if they die or if they get sick because of the injection and we go somewhere else. Because I trust her, I trust that she'll act in our puppies' best interests. Many of her patients are long-termers - we keep going back and this wouldn't be happening if she wasn't doing the right thing by our dogs. I'm not saying that you should go with the injection, just saying you should make up your own mind based on your own circumstances. For us because of a severe illness in the family which means constant emergencies and dashing off the hospital and rushing around - we didn't want to run the risk of accidentally forgetting to administer the medication. Yes it shouldn't be not hard to remember such things, but when things get stressful and we're busy and at emergency all day and night, I've forgotten to pay bills and I've ever forgotten to take the pill (!!) - so the injection works out best for us.

Max#1: that is such a cute photo of Max! OH just saw it and said: "that's not max, that's Elbie" Then he wanted to know how old Max is now.

He's not his usual happy self at all. Ears are back, shoulders slumped and he seems a little bit frightened of everything - which again is not like him at all. He's always been the pluckiest of puppies and afraid of nothing. I hope he'll be all right by tomorrow.

Hoover was desexed this afternoon. He's still very groggy and while asleep (or immobile from grogginess), the poor thing urinated and wet the crate - and his stitches. We've cleaned up the crate but I'm wondering if I should be doing anything about the fact that his stitches were wet with urine ... Of course I can't wipe him down with a damp cloth or something. Also, in terms of the grogginess, I realise that dogs can stay drowsy for up to 24 hours after the operation because of the anaesthesia, but how long did other people's dogs stay drowsy? Elbie was only 10 weeks old when he was desexed (long story) and within hours he was up and about, totally back to his usual self. Hoover's over five months old now and 15kg (he's not fat but he's big for a Kelpie) so I'm a bit surprised he's so drowsy.

Flyby post! Dobe puppies! So cute! And yes, it's all about the ears. I think dobes only looked fearsome when they had the Devil Ears, with their natural ears they look very gentle. wuffles - I can't believe people cross the road over Satch! he is such a gentle giant!! Then again, a tradesman who came by looked at our two and said: "Kelpies? They're only ok when they're puppies - when they're older, they'll bite you." Hoover's home post-snip. He is very, very groggy and is such a sad-looking little puppy right now.

Minxy: Congratulations!! Also, I'd pay good money to see K do flyball ravenau1 is probably busy either cooing after puppy or chasing around after puppy and cleaning up puddles and poo-dles ... Niques - so sorry to hear that James is still not eating. I know how worrying that must be for you. Is he willing to eat anything at all? Rice? Chicken etc? Alas, I'm feeling a bit edgy tonight. Papa Koala's been in and out of hospital the last week so that's been worrying. On top of that, tomorrow we're Hoover in for desexing It's the right thing to do of course and we were always going to get him desexed but I just feel quite guilty about it for some reason. With Elbie, it was kind of sprung on us quickly because he had an injured paw and kind of had to do everything at the same time so there wasn't really time to ponder things too much. He keeps running at me with his ears back determinedly and his butt wiggling happily - tomorrow he's going to be a bit bewildered as we leave him at the vet's. He hasn't been left behind at a place for so long before. I know he'll be fine but anyway ;) ETA: Betsy - do we get to see the photo with Santa?