koalathebear

We're still having troubles balancing treats on Elbie's nose - he's happy to have them there but they fall off his nose So for the time being, we are using a strip of ham. So, here's a video of Elbie's willpower being tested by ... ham. Video is .

Gah! He looks soooooooooooo cute

shellsboers: Miss Kippy looks beeeeeeeautiful in her new bed and ready for Canine Woodstock! spottychick: no more teasing. You'll have to give us a photo of the xxxxxl crate and your doggies very soon

Awesome. You'll probably be able to fit all of Kuma's puppy class in that crate

:D same - I bought the xxxl for $59. Oh well Still a good deal, I think.

So sorry that your phone/camera isn't working!! :'( I'd love to see the photos. It's very cool seeing the various photos of 'funky crate in use'. I only made a very half-hearted effort at measuring up Elbie - chasing him around with the tape measure. The fact that it's so big makes it a convenient, moveable playpen for him :D

;) There seems to be a small child hogging the camera from the Ridgeback ... Yeah he kind of got lost in the shadows (the dog that is!). The blue PJ's don't help with that too much either The crates look like funky outdoor tents. I now have a vision of all of our dogs in their 'tents', chilling out in a field in a kind of canine Woodstock or somthing ...

*laugh* But he can do all of those already! Also "are you shy" and " ". See . Although we didn't make him bow for the music video. Ergo, aside from commando crawl and balance things on nose, I'm struggling to find basic tricks to teach him before we move to the more complex ones.

I should add I'm also still working on the commando crawl with Elbie. If there are no benches/stools for him to scramble under, his butt goes in the air Not much of a commando!

Awesome. I can't wait to see it! No idea about the frisbee and GSD puppy thing ... I have to admit, Elbie runs around on grass with his frisbee at six months - he loves it so much. I'm impressed Mindy will let the treat sit there for 30 seconds! I think Elbie will be able to learn the flick catch thing if I can just get him to sit there with the treat first - he's very distracted by the FOOD on his nose *laugh* Well Elbie seems to enjoy learning new things even if we aren't always successful. It's really hard for me to come up with new tricks because the books we bought have really complicated tricks that seem more suitable for doggy dancing - there is no way I'm going to do a cartwheel and have the dog leap through my legs or do a handstand with Elbie leaping past me so we shall persist with the balancing trick for now ... Niques: I've been doing it with a clicker. When he keeps his head still then he gets a treat. he does sometimes follow the hand around but I've been able to get him to stay still now and then ... Awwwww that's so cute! Poor puppy. And yes, the dog in that last video - I felt so sorry for it. It was drooling away and looking soooooooo sad.

Was Big Ted named after the toy from Play School? Niques - Yay for you and James! So glad it ended out all right, it must have been very worrying. The shiba inu owner at Elbie's dog school recounted a tale of how her dog bolted out the front door one morning and how she was chasing after her puppy in her pyjamas, encountering a group of drunken yobbos who said: "We just saw a fox - if we had a gun we would have shot it." Eeek!!!

I really like tab289's youtube channel. He and his gorgeous German Shepherd Solea are so helpful and entertaining. is Solea as a beautiful, playful 'little' puppy. She's pretty huge for a puppy but sooooooooo cute and soooooo well-behaved. It was tab289 and Solea who were able to teach us how to teach Elbie how to do the . Other methods weren't working for us.This week, I've been trying to teach Elbie how to balance a dog biscuit on his nose using . Naturally Solea is a total star and makes it look easy. One funny thing is that because Solea is so well-trained, tab289 clearly has to teach her to display the 'bad' behaviours for the training videos but even her 'bad' behaviours just demonstrate how well-trained she is.In terms of the 'balancing' trick, as it seems to have a 'spot' on its snout for putting treats and toys Elbie's snout just isn't quite shaped to balance things but he is trying and it's so cute. I feel really, really bad for this poor dog though. Look at those adorable, adorable eyes!!! He is drooling in seconds and I don't know how he manages to hold on for as long as he does! Has anyone else managed to teach their puppy to balance a biscuit on his/her nose? I'm using it as an exercise to try to teach Elbie patience and self-control. He's already very good about waiting for his food for ages (although sometimes he quivers). He can wait up to a minute even if the food is directly under his nose. We can also make him stop eating half-way and we can also throw kibble around his legs and make him ignore it. The nose-balancing is really testing his self-control though.

There seems to be a small child hogging the camera from the Ridgeback ...

Well she's lucky to be able to go to uni with you and I think you're doing really well with her. I can't even begin to imagine Elbie sitting quietly at work here with me

Happy belated birthday to Diesel. He looks soooooooooooo cuddley.

I haven't gone through all the posts yet but if you do a search for digging, you get quite a few hits. See here. Hopefully something in there will be helpful for your situation My puppy's deterred by dropping poop in the holes where we don't want him digging and he now mostly concentrates his digging to one section of the yard where digging is permitted. It's amazing how deep some of the holes can be!! Good luck!

That is the best sandpit EVER. You should start up a business - I'm sure there are heaps of dog-ravaged yards that would welcome it!

Oops post

Bwahahahahaha! That is hilarious! The crate looks even huger with the kitty cat in there

Preferences are so different when it comes to dogs and as long as the dog is looked after, I don't think it's really a problem. Sometimes people come on this forum and say that their dog is an outside dog and a lot of people get really upset about that. My family are still incredulous that we have Elbie as a mostly inside dog :D As for sleeping ... much as I'd love to have Elbie sleep on our bed: 1. I have allergies that I am keeping under control now - I'd just be tempting fate if I let him in our bed 2. We have a funny vision of waking up at night with a dog staring into our face - that would just be too weird for us Fortunately for us, he loves his crate a lot and it's a comfy and safe place for him.

A lot of the exercises during our obedience class could probably be boring for a puppy For instance, sometimes we walk around in a circle for ages with the dog dropping/sitting every now and then. I've noticed that some dogs go a bit bonkers after a while. Elbie's fine with those ones but he will yip and honk a bit if it's one of those exercises where each dog has to do the exercise one at a time and he is left waiting too long after he's had his turn. I suppose as a future guide-dog poor Mindy is going to have to learn to cope with boredom one day ... One of my classmates during law school relied on a lovely dog named Bubbles and she would sit through lectures that would sometimes be 2 hours long. Some of the exams we did were 3-4 hours long as well and poor Bubbles had to learn how to just sit there patiently. Elbie doesn't bark during training but he does honk a bit if he's frustrated because he can't understand what we want him to do :D Then he'll go into a frenzy delivering up all of his tricks in a vain attempt to give us the 'right' one

Look forward to seeing cutie James in his crate As for crate size I picked ... I picked XXXL. Elbie's mesh crate is pretty big and he's fully toilet-trained so I wasn't fussed about the crate being too big - just wanted it to be nice and comfy for him. My husband says we spend more on the dog than we do on ourselves. Bwahaha. Must have photos! I have never met a Ridgeback so photos will have to tide me over until then. Elbie thanks you for the compliment :D He's a little rascal but very lovable.

It's a luxury palace! :D

SecretKei, thanks so much! Elbie's crate arrived today Some photos are here. What a great crate!

Last week, SecretKei posted about how topbuy had soft crates on sale. Elbie has way too much Stuff and my husband's always laughing at how I keep buying him stuff (although HE always buys him stuff, too!) but I couldn't resist and so bought a soft crate for Elbie ... just because ... no idea what we're actually going to use it for It arrived while I wasn't home so my husband emailed me and said that he was impressed that it comes with a soft mat, and also has built-in zippered pouches and folds up into an easy-to-carry version. It's pretty big and apparently Elbie didn't hesitate to go inside - he fits inside with no problems. The large crate: Elbie looking comfy with in his new crate - the fat toy at the front is his squeaky sheep toy that sounds like an asthmatic walrus. Elbie being posed for a photo - his demented fixed look is probably because he's staring at a piece of devon His teeth are apparently slightly bared here because he seemed to think that "Touch" meant "Teeth" or somethi8ng