koalathebear

I can keep an eye on him if you like - I'll be sitting under the veranda thingy with my little monster Hoover while Monster Elbie's out with OH running through his exercises. KumaAkita: how was the playdate? Did Kuma get in touch with his inner aura and was there a group hug?

niques: Elbie's 8 months now but he's lost his puppy look and looks very grown-up, especially compared to Hoover. Thanks for the well-wishes. I feel so sorry for Hoover when I see his bald patch but he seems unfussed. ravenau1: the puppy scrum is adorable. if you got all of them, then you wouldn't have to debate names wuffles: Yes it was a bakey day this morning but now we have rain ... Lovely photos and video - as usual Ava's such a lady, and so white and luminescent. Both our dogs were snoring today during the rain. Elbie was on high alert during the thunder - barked once and then prowled the house. Hoover was alert but seemed unfussed. In other news, our gas stove and oven is broken! No baking or cooking until we get it repaired!!! Also, does anyone know where to buy cute dog decorations for cupcakes (for human consumption) e.g. little candy dogs or paw prints? In other news, I'm helping out the people at the Blacktown Pound rescue and made some more dog videos today. Alas, we don't have a lot to work with, just the pound photos and the pound videos but here are the ones I made this afternoon. Click on the image to see the video. (ETA: had to re-upload the Lucy video because I'm having problems with it ...). As usual, all comments and criticisms welcome.

is adopted! :D

OK, haven't updated this thread for awhile :p . Hoover is still playing catch-up in terms of tricks, but he's going ok.

The two are definitely getting on a lot better now in terms of being calmer around one another. And yes, as you say - poor Hoover had demodex mites!!! When we got Elbie he had ringworm and now poor Hoover with his skin mites. For anyone whose doggie played with Hoover - don't worry - it's not contagious! I wrote about it in the health forum, but here's what we discovered: I'm relieved it's not alopecia! Would love to ... but we have dog training classes on Saturday morning and then dog school on Sunday mornings. As soon as Hoover's finished his third set of vaccinations, we'd definitely be up for a play date at the Forde dog park - we love that place. Yes, it's a cute photo and Hoover has developed the Kelpie Stare :p Yay to you and Kuma. Kuma has such a lovely nature. I hope he enjoys his play date with Steve. Let us know how it goes, Steve is so famous on DOL that it will be like meeting a celebrity! Those are super cute photos of Kuma & your OH. I like the supervision shots, and that close up is soooo cute. Max#1: That track-suit pant tug is so professional! You should go into business making dog toys. You could make a fortune. I'm going to have to have a think about this one...! And finally, here's a of the doggies. Hoover still has a way to go before he catches up with Elbie but he's doing ok

Thanks all! The vet put some oil on poor Hoover's head and did a skin scraping. He didn't seem to mind, even though she had to scrape to the point where his head was bleeding. She went off to check it out under the microscope and it's demodex mites. Apparently nothing alarming. She let my OH look at them under the microscope and then said she'd keep the slide for "the girls" (student interns?) to study. She's given us a small bottle of anti-mite solution to dab on his head twice a day. She's also given us some antibiotics for him to take just in case it's affected his immune system. She said it isn't contagious (for us), won't spread to his bedding, and Elbie should be fine. It would take prolonged direct skin contact for Elbie to catch it, etc etc. And wikipedia says most dogs are immune to that number of mites anyway. Every dog has them but their immune systems usually keep it under control etc. We also asked about microchipping and the original plan was to do it during the de-sexing because it's a big needle but because Hoover so placid, we had him microchipped today. OH got a firm grip on him in case he wriggled, and she injected the microchip. Not only did he not wriggle, he didn't even yelp or seem to care at all. The vet said that he was tough and she wished they were all like that. He didn't even bleed or anything. Must be the tough farm upbringing His head should be better in a few weeks. The vet said that was good that we hadn't waited until his next appointment to ask about the fur thinness. The timing of his next vaccination means they can do a follow-up check at the same time.

Hoover the Kelpie is now 15 weeks old. He's now eating well with a good appetite (no longer fussy about kibble) and seems very healthy and happy. He also enjoys his lamb flaps. One thing that worries me is that he's got thinning fur on his head. It's been like that for a while, doesn't seem to be getting any worse and there's no scratching or itchiness from what I can tell. He doesn't have fleas. His fur is fine everywhere else. You can see the thinning fur on his temple in this photograph: With the flash on, it's even clearer and the poor puppy looks like he's going bald! Not so obvious in this light We're taking him to the vet tomorrow but I was just wondering if anyone had any ideas? I know it could possibly be alopecia but how fast is the progression? The thin patch on his head seems to have been like that for quite some time.

Here you can see poor Hoover's thinning patch of fur on his head. He looks almost bald here!!! He's going to the vet tomorrow to see whether it's anything to worry about ... Hope all are well!

Sorry for being incommunicado. It's been a long and hard week. I am hoping that next week will be better. Thanks for your support all! ravenau1: Very cute pics of the pups. They're so wee KumaAkita is probably laughing given that I believe Kuma is already well over 40 kg lilli_star: glad Ruby was ok while you were away. I felt soooooooooooo guilty that first time I left poor Elbie alone in the yard for 12 hours on the day my OH flew back to Canada. It was as traumatic for me as it was for him. Don't worry about spoiling Ruby - I think we're all guilty of spoiling our doggies just a wee bit. Also, the soft crate has arrived! Thank you so much!!! wuffles: How was Mr Satch tonight? You're so dedicated going to training on Thursday evenings AND Sunday mornings. betsy: your puppy looks so happy in that photo! As for the lunging ... sigh ... I wonder if Elbie will ever stop lunging ... I have a few photos of the monsters that my OH took. Puppy dog eyes Sleeping puppies. Elbie's eyes are awake because he's always hyper-alert and the sound of a camera can make his eyes open even when he's asleep. Lounging puppies Again, Elbie's the alert one and hears the sound of the camera More lounging in the dog bed

Am here, just a bit preoccupied. OT: Things have been a bit crazy at work and unfortunately Papa Koala's fast running out of treatments for his lung cancer. We knew he was terminal - that's why we came back to Australia - and he's actually doing a lot better than the doctors thought he would but the chemo doesn't work any more, oral meds aren't working, we're coming to the end of radiotherapy and we can see the cancer is starting to take hold as he weakens and gets sicker. It doesn't matter how mentally prepared you are, it's hard. I can see that the next few months will be tough ones, please bear with me :D Back on topic ... the fur on Hoover's head is a bit thin! My poor puppy! He'll see the vet on the 11th for his final vaccinations so hopefully we'll find out if the thinness is anything to worry about. I'll love him even if he's bald, but poor him!

:D Of course. Membership is open to anyone who feels like posting. :D Do you have photos of your beautiful doggies as babies? Also, I'm so intrigued by what made you choose the breeds you did. Yes, I'm nosy :D They're so different!

Thanks for the info. I haven't had much experience with Malinois and was quite startled to see how incredibly fast and sleek they were with their leaping. I was wondering the same thing i.e. different criteria for working dogs to obedience trial dogs. Presumably for operational work, you want them to be looking forward and just checking back to handler regularly rather than constant staring into handler's face eg I noticed that for the 'crawl', the handlers got onto the ground with their dogs and crawled with them, which I assume might be what might happen in the field. I also noticed that for the 'tricks' component, the dogs stared much more at their handlers for direction so presumably the focus is there, it's just that for different tasks, they focus on different things. Someone mentioned in a post a bit higher up that there was yanking and a degree of roughness with the leash (although I wouldn't be able to get my dogs to heel nicely if I was rough with the leash). I did notice that quite a few handlers were patting their dogs between exercises and I didn't see any obvious mishandling and roughness. Given the performance and the results, can we assume that the dogs aren't mistreated/handled roughly for training? I know that some people say that Kelpies shut down with rough handling so am wondering if Malinois would be the same? I have no idea about police dog training methods. For me I was just impressed that the dogs were able to perform so well with SUCH a high level of distraction and busy-ness around them.

There's no invitation needed for this thread. All are welcome, especially Ava's ... ummmm ... 'auntie'?

Yes she is an Aussie Ava's the prettiest Aussie I've ever seen - but her look is rare.

ravenau1: Astrid's a really nice name - and one of my favourite characters in Fringe. Walter always gets her name wrong and calls her Astro and Aspirin At the end of the day even if your dog's name is longish, you'll end up shortening it when training so you can probably give her as many names as you like. For toys, I agree with wuffles that you might want to wait and see what your pup likes. For instance, Elbie isn't that thrilled about kongs, loves his tucker ball, had zero interest in his hideously expensive home alone ball which people on DOL RAVED about ... he didn't like tugs as a young pup but now loves his tug toy and will 'work' for tugs. He loves juice bottles, antlers, all squeakies - but there's someone in the puppy thread who said that their dog was scared of squeakers. Elbie's favourite outdoor toy is probably his rubber frisbee although he likes balls as well. I feel so bad for him right now because his favourite game was to hold one toy in his mouth and then bat the tennis ball around with his paw. These days, every time he tries to play that game, he's pounced on by a little monsterHoover and so he doesn't get to play his game. They both love the Tuffie toys which are AWESOME because so far they're indestructible. We have a tug toy, a ring and a star fish. Maybe Kuma knew we had a puppy play date in the off-lead area and wanted to join in. That is a pain about the husky. Sometimes there are dogs that just don't click. Terriers frequently want to lunge at Elbie although as time has passed, they appear more desensitised to one another so there's less lunging but in the early days, we found it so hard to avoid being next to a terrier ... The weather was also a bit foul last week so I hope it was just a fleeting moment of turdiness. Ayah. DOL fear strike again. Because of DOL, I put all the Kongs and Kong balls away because of the stories of deaths arising from kongs and kong balls. Snakes is scary, too ... Sigh. On the one hand, Hoover IS chilled, but he's actually a lot naughtier than Elbie if that makes any sense. He looks very placid and cute but he's so naughty!!! Still, he can be trained. He learned high five today.

I noticed the bit about focus in the earlier clips, too. Clips 3 and 4 have more 'tricks' so you can see the dogs focussing more on the handlers. Not everyone's cup of tea of course but I think it's interesting to see.

I'm still watching it myself. It's interesting although I find it weird that the Chinese competitions have to have synchronised dog trialling ... The 'dancing' is just strange and I'm not sure why a dog would need to learn how to run over people's backs. Part 1 has bitework and weird choreography .. Part 2 has some fairly impressive sit-stays. Part 3 has some group stands and drops - and the group crawl is interesting, as are the dogs leaping over one another and under one another! can't believe how fast and sleek they are. pt 1 pt 2 pt 3 pt 4 pt 5Is it usual for Malinois to be so thin though?

Hoover dug two more holes today - fairly small and in the tanbark area and the gravel not the lawn. Fortunately he doesn't dig in the lawn too much. Anyway, we were watching an episode of Fringe over dinner when we saw this scene of two guys digging a hole: We immediately thought: "Hoover's struck again".

Our first puppy (8 months old) is fully house-trained, the second puppy (14 weeks) just needs one toilet break at 3.30am and is pretty much almost fully house-trained now. Both of our puppies now toilet on command which makes life easier. We also have a designated spot (Poo Corner) where they are to do their business. At night, they are very good about going to Poo Corner. After rain, Elbie sometimes gets confused so we need to put him on his leash and guide him back to Poo Corner. For training, we use a leash or we herd them towards Poo Corner and then we praise. If we see them going elsewhere, we bring them back to Poo Corner. The problem is during the day. I notice that they will go to Poo Corner of their own volition if they’re nearby but if they’re on the other side of the yard, they’ll usually just dispense with the rules. This happened when Elbie was alone, too. It’s like the effort of going to Poo Corner is too much of an inconvenience so they let fly wherever they happen to be in the yard So while a clean-up usually only takes about 5 minutes in Poo Corner, we will have to do a search of the yard for 2-3 renegade deposits. Now that we have two dogs, we clean up at least twice a day. I was interested in other people’s situations. Do your dogs unerringly go to their designated Poo Corner or is every Poo Pick clean-up a treasure hunt? Are they like our dogs, 90% in Poo Corner but 10% here and there? If you’ve managed to train them to go Poo Corner and nowhere else – how did you do it?

:D

Hi PF – I don’t have a problem with people educating – that’s the purpose of this forum. My main wish was that people could try to be a bit more polite about it sometimes – I’m not saying that they have to be touchy feely, but people don’t have to be nasty. For instance – even when you’re at your most disapproving you’re still very factual and don’t make personal attacks and digs. I don’t always agree with what you say and sometimes I go “ouch” and cry into my pillow ( ) but I would never dismiss what you say out of hand because you formulate your words in a reasoned and rational manner and I know that you're very experienced with dogs and what you say makes a lot of sense to me. My experience here has been mostly positive but as someone who has very occasionally been at the receiving end of less than polite comments, I wanted to express my “wish” that people try to be polite. I find it a bit ironic that politeness is considered by many to be whitewashing yet being rude is extolled as being a right of Internet speech. That’s all :D

Funnily enough today we were given some Advance samples and some Nutro samples for the doggies to do a taste test. The feedback about Royal Canin seems very good so we're happy to switch over to that once our bag of Hills is done. Thanks. Both our doggies are very spoiled I fear but we are very conscious that they're working line dogs living in our home as pets so we're quite careful to try to keep them both mentally occupied. That's why in addition to obedience, walks and games, they have to work hard for their kibble and do tricks and commands. I know it's not for everyone, but it's what works for these two - Elbie in particular seems to thrive on having a 'job' to do and he's super-focussed when working for his kibble.

Not everyone knows how to resize images but it's nicer when they do. On some computers, the settings will automatically 'resize' the images so that you can see them but on my home computer, those 1-2 meg images are HUGE and sometimes all I can see is a dog nose.

Yup. Each person who accessed it will be counted as downloading it. that's why I resize all of my photos and save them as web quality (no more than 166K). For people who upload photos that are 1-2 meg, if they uploaded 6 photos in a post then that's 12 meg each time someone accesses that thread. 10 gig is a lot but there are a LOT of people who use DOL - not just registered users, also the guests etc. ETA: I've noticed that you already DO resize all your images and you don't have those huge whopping image files that some people do. The only think that I can think of is if there has been a sudden spike in your download rate i.e. you've never had this problem before, then someone on a website or forum must be posting a direct link to your photos. I think there are reverse searches you can do to see who is linking to certain images. For instance, for me, I discovered that there was some Prison Break bulletin board linking to some pic spams I used to do, which is why my Photobucket account got torpedoed that month

Sorry I got to this post too late. It's not the number of photos you have, it's how many times people access them/download them. if there are people who are hyperlinking to them, it can really kill your bandwidth. I once lost access to all of my photos just because someone on some bulletin board was hotlinking to them. It's pretty frustrating. All your pictures are fine again now though