Huntia

There is a show at Stroud this Saturday. is any one from up north coming down early for that show? Stroud is only an hour from Newcastle. Good luck with finding someone to take them to newcastle.

Looks like I need to hit the online pet stores for some toys

Thnaks for all the advice. We will never know for sure how Cherry broke her neck but I suspect that she jumped from the top of the dam wall and landed on her neck, as I found her at the bottom of the dam wall. The dam is on the side of a hill so it is a drop if she didn't land properly, and the new puppy won't have access to it . With the dog run/kennel I am thinking about putting some fake grass at the front of it to make it a bit nicer, instead of being full concrete. And there are four runs side by side, so if neccessary I could put the older dog in beside her to keep her company ??? How do you teach an older dog to play gently....not so rough especially as the pup gets older and starts to initiate the rough play themselves?? ( and while the play looked rough to me, I rarely heard a yelp from either dog ) How old should the puppy be before I can leave them alone together? I am guessing that it will be a wait and see situation?? But for all my concerns, I am still very excited about our new addition

Hi everyone, In mid to late May we will be getting our new ridgeback girl . At home at the moment i have a ridgeback boy who will have just turned 2 when we bring home the new addition. Some background info before i launch into my question. At the end of January we lost our 5 and 1/2 month old RR puppy (Cherry) in a freak accident (she somehow broke her neck while we were in town for 2 hours ) and a couple of weeks ago we lost our 13 year old RR girl. the 2 year old male was fine with the puppy, but at times i did feel that they both played very rough!! We brought Cherry home at 13 weeks old, which was great as doing three feeds had us stumped at the time. My questions that I would like advice on are: 1. Should I confine her for a few weeks while I am at work? I am concerned about rough play while i am not around to monitor. we have dog runs that were built by the previous occupants that are roughly 120 cm x 3 metres. Would it be ok to leave her in the run with heaps of toys etc? 2. what have others done about the midday feed of a young puppy when they are unable to get home from work to feed them ( I live 30 min from my place of work.) I have some ideas....feeding before i leave, as soon as we get home and than a smaller meal at bedtime....or one of those timer bowls (but i need to research that more yet) I am a school teacher and I work 4 days a week and leave home at 8 am and i can be home at 4pm I don't know if i am more worried than normal because of what happened to the last puppy .

poor puppy I hope someone can help you out

What sort of training are you after? If it is for behavoural issues I have heard good things about Louise Rourke at Valley Vets in Wingham, and for general training I attend individual lessons with a trainer locally (near Gloucester) who specialises in training dogs to be assistance dogs, but does excellent training in what ever areas you would like

I live an hour north of newcastle and the weather is picture perfect today. :D But we didn't get the last lot of rain that they did. I am off too Nabiac tomorrow, so I am hoping for this spectacular weather to continue

Sunday morning at HB for the Medowie show has been absoloutley beautiful Thank goodness it didn't turn out like Fridays forecast which was 20-40mm for today

Such a sad ending Thinking of you and your loved ones at this time

I hope you find your dog soon Best of luck

Thanks Coogie. It looks like i am giving him enough glucosamine, but i could up the fish oil component :) . And I plan on calling the chiro tomorrow to talk through his injury and progress. Its weird because he is in no apparent pain but their is still a lump and the angle of the leg is not right. He can bend the leg without problem.

Would it be ok to give him human Glucosamine and fish oil tablets? And does anyone have any idea about what dosage for a 44kg dog? :)

Hi all, I seem to be the unluckiest dog owner at the moment, or at least my dogs are unlucky My 21 month old RR has strained a ligament, and from what the chiro said I assume it is the cruciate ligament? Earlier in the week I was practising stacking him when I noticed that his left hind leg "knee" was not pointing straight forward but was out to the side at an angle and that there was a "lump". He was walking fine no limp at all and is weight bearing all four legs equally,the only sign of discomfort is when the 13 yr old RR sits on him, than he has a low growl, which is not normal for him. The next day I took him to a chiropractor that was highly recommended by my breeder and others. He gave him a thorough look over and work over, and stated that he had strained the ACL joint, gave him and injection and said not too let the dog run for a week, but take him for lots of walks. So since Tuesday he has been crated, kenneld, confined to the house and only let out on a lead for walks. What I would like to know is there any thing else I should be doing for him? I have introduced Pernease powder into his meal, but should I be massaging it...or anything else? I would really love to help it heal quickly and properley. I rang the Chiro back to today and he said it may take 10 -12 days for it to heal. What are other peoples experiences?

Glad to hear/read that she is safe sound and home

i hope she is found safe and soon

Hi Dolers, My family is going to a wedding at Anna Bay, and staying at the Samurai Beach Resort in late March. Does anyone have any reccommendations for a good dog boarding kennel facility in that area? We will becoming from Wards River which is North West of the Bay, passing through Stroud, and Medowie to get to the Bay. I have 2 Rhodesian Ridgebacks. Thank you. Looking forward to reading some reccommendations :D

Shared on my FB page. I hope she has them returned soon.

The graphite drawings are gorgeous. What a lovely thing to do for your friend :D

Thank you to everyone for your kind thoughts and wishes. It has been a very tough couple of days. On Saturday morning we went to town, we were gone for 2 hours, when we got home (we live on a farm) only the 2 older dogs were in the yard, straight away we knew something was wrong as the puppy Cherry is always with the older dogs. When we found her, at first I suspected snake bite, as she was laying down and not moving, so I rang the vet and rushed her to town. She had not been bitten by a snake, but had broken her neck between the c1 and c2 in a freakish accident while we were away. Her xrays were fowarded onto SASH in Sydney and the prognosis/diagnosis they gave was the worst case scenario for us, so we said goodbye to our beautiful girl. Thank goodness I have a friend who is a vet (not working at present as her 3rd child is due in 2weeks) who was able to step in and take control of the case. The vet on duty while absolutley lovely is only a first year grad and jsut didn't have the experience to deal with what was wrong with Cherry. My friend, at my request came and looked at Cherry and reccommended that the xrays be sent away for diagnosis, as it wasn't clear cut on the xrays to them how bad she actually was. (without her we could have been waitng until this morning when the owner/vet came back to work for a final diagnosis ) My friend through her connections was able to finally get a diagnosis from the SASH vets (I got Cherry to town at 12pm and the final diagnosis from SASH came through at 4.30 ish. Best case scenario was that she would recover with immobilisation and rest, next best scenario was recovery with an operation, worst case..... The vets at SASH when they finally gave us their diagnosis said they were surprised she was still breathing. ( i still had hope for a miracle at this time because she could move her back legs and could respond to deep pain,) The xrays from top view looked fine, from the side there was an upward or downwards shift of the C1 C2. Their diagnosis was that they could operate if we got her down to Sydney straight away (minimum 3 hours) but the prognosis was "guarded" at best. If she did survive the trip and than the op, she would have a 2-3 week stay in the hospital with the cast to stay on another 8-12 weeks after that with minimal movement, and they could not say what her quality of life would be like. If they had of told me that they could operate, and it would have been a success, we would have taken her down there in a heart beat no matter the cost. But as it was we could not put her through that. She was in so much pain....the screams when ever she tried to move her head or her head was moved will haunt me for a long time. The look of trust that she gave me as i held her while they gave the injection still is breaking my heart. Sorry for my convoluted ravings about her. I miss her. My boy dog misses her, he is so quiet at the moment, and gives little whimper cries when he does lie down. She was his best mate

Thank you everyone, for your kind words. It has been a horrible day for us, and I know the pain will lessen with time but at the moment all i can do is cry... I feel like my heart is breaking, she was so young and sweet, with such a beautiful temprament. I will love her and miss her every day

If this link doesn't work just google UNE Animal Science and it will come up :) I just looked it up and with it being 4 years full time, I can't see myself doing it unfortunately. With 5 years already spent at uni, and a young family that much more time studying doesn't appeal, but I still think some of the units would be extremely interesting to do :D

Today we said goodbye to our very sweet Cherry Berry Bliss Bomb. Aged 24 weeks her life was way too short with us and we will miss her everyday. I hope she is running free of pain over the rainbow bridge, and that I will meet up with her again one day.

I can only go on whats in the media release (which is a PR job for UNE naturally), but it had the detection course being taught a quarantine dog handler /trainer and said that quarantine/customs were going to be interested in the graduates because alot of what the course covered is what they teach when training individuals for the job, so therefore they would have jobe ready applicants waiting to fil positions. It still sounds like a great course to me....sepecially as I am about to go back to work on Monday teaching hogh school kids

I was just reading an article in a bulletin for work when I came across a media release for UNE about a degree in Animal Science where you can specialise in Canine and Equine science (amongst other things). They were talking about distance ed students who were doing the "working canines" unit residential school. "During the 4 day residential school, the students also travelled to a farm to see sheep dog demostrations, to the Armidale greyhound racing Club to see racing grey hounds in training, practised obedience training with dogs of mixed breeds, a saw a sled dog demonstation by Neen Brown...." They also participated in detector dog training sessions. From what i can gather from the release it is a degree for people wishing to work with dogs in customs, military, police and corrective services ( and future areas of cancer detection and wildlife conservation) It sounds like a wonderful degree....a career working with dogs

I will high light an paper entries I do, but is it possible to highlight this when using ozentries, or should I go the paper route for a while?? I maybe worrying unnecessarily as it as only happend the once. :)