disintegratus

I think Costco still has them, for around $60. Otherwise, I'm not too sure, sorry. I bought my lot cheapy beds from ebay (as in human beds) for the sunroom. Don't ever do it, it's the worst thing ever. There are tiny little bits of bed alllll over the sunroom. And they broke the frames. Metal frames. I don't know how.

or poops on him Right in his eye. What a psycho!

I never wanted girls, now I have 3/5 :laugh: They're all desexed though, so I imagine their bitchiness is mellowed somewhat. Zehra's the fun police, she really rules the roost and will often get mad at the rest of them for having the audacity to play near her (read: within 3 acres of her :p) She's been the boss forever though, and I think it's mostly because she's so stupid that the other ones won't even bother. Then Bones came along, and figured out pretty quickly that not only is Zehra bigger, but also a lot dumber than her, so there was no point challenging her authority. Newest girl is the kelpie, who is pretty smart and figured out even quicker that size is not on her side at all. She's ended up with a slightly torn ear after much posturing and eyeballing and generally trying it on with all the others. They've told her in no uncertain terms that they're not putting up with that crap, and everyone's moved on and gets along great now. Meanwhile, all this happens and the two boys obliviously just carry on with their lives, with never even an inkling of the convoluted soap operas happening under their noses!

I don't have that problem. I'm usually up at the crack of sparrow's fart, but if I try to let the dogs out of their crates before 8am, the give me filthy looks and take soooooo long to get up and out. lazy buggers! :laugh:

I'm so glad I stay away from social media. Even the dogs know, pooping time is alone time!!!

We've got rats and mice at the moment. We didn't empty the rubbish room for 4 months while Nathan was out of work, now that we've emptied it they're all looking for a new place to live. We've killed 3 rats in the lounge room in the space of 3 days, that was the point where I'd had enough and bought some baits. I haven't found any dead ones yet, but they are eating the baits.

Only take one piece of advice on the internet: See a professional behaviourist!!! My boy Thundercleese was displaying similar issues at a younger age, my thought was that he was just going through a fear period and would get over it. 4-odd years later, I have 45kg of fear aggressive dog, which can be very difficult to manage. Good luck with Abby :)

The vet I used to use was great, I believe they do have to send them straight to the pound, so I would take the dog there and have it scanned, its owners would then be contacted and passed on my name and phone number so they could collect the dog from my place. saves the vet time and money, saves the owner money, and saves the dog stress. if there was no microchip though, I'd have to leave it with them and it would go to the pound ETA: every dog got its chance once. If I saw the same dog wandering again, i would leave it at the vet and it would go to the pound. I'm happy to go out of my way to help people out, but I'm not a doggy day care service. There was one exception, the old feller who lived not far from my old old house. His neighbours had demolished and were rebuilding and the builders kept messing with the temporary fence, moving it slightly etc in the course of their work. He had a teeny little JRT x who would've fit through the eye of a needle, but the dog was old too and not quite continent, so he couldn't leave him inside when he went to dialysis. I used to tie him up on our front verandah if I picked him up, and his owner would pick him up on his way home.

Sometimes Zehra gets so involved with scratching her own butt that she overbalances and falls over. She's a simple gal :)

My old man Harley likes to get get really close to people, if you're sitting on a chair he will come up and sit right in between your knees staring into your face in rapture as you scratch his ears... ...most strangers juuuust have enough time to say "he's such a lovely dog, isn't he?" before he burps right in their face!!

I too am following this thread with great interest, having a large reactive dog myself. I don't think the grain option would work for him though, they got into the house when we weren't home once, between the (then) 4 of them, they ate about 8kg of bird seed in one sitting. They were pooping it out for days, it was terrible.

Oh wow Canine Coach, that's a lot less than I was expecting. I really like Dr Bob, he was excellent when Zehra had her skin/allergy issues and has been great with my sister's awful pig, but TBH, he can be a tad expensive, so I hadn't even thought of him for titre testing. He's the vet I go to when there's actually something wrong with the dog :p If it's something straightforward that still needs a vet (eg vaccs or that time Harley sliced his leg open and needed stitches), I usually go with someone slightly cheaper.

Fair enough, it wouldn't be appropriate for all types of dogs or all types of cats. I never said it would be. Sense would need to be applied, just like when purchasing a collar. You wouldn't put a giant studded collar on a cat for practical reasons, and understandably you wouldn't put a huge metal tag hanging off a dog or cat's ear. It's possible to get all necessary information condensed onto one small size, lightweight plastic disc. Council rego number on one side, and owners contact details on the other. I'm not talking a huge dangly "earring", it would be as small as possible balless ring through the ear with the SMALL tag attached. Neck piercing imo would be more appropriate for cats as they don't tend to play with each other the same way dogs do, again, a very small piercing with as small as possible tag attached. Yes, it would have to be kept clean while it healed, but once it had healed (which wouldn't take long), it would be fine. And just for the record, I never said (or meant to imply) that anyone who disagrees with me is an animal rights douchebag. When I said "animal rights douchebags", what I meant was "the type of person who will bitch and moan about how cruel check chains are, but is perfectly okay with alpha rolling their chihuahua because the internet told them it was okay to do that" (and yes I am aware that that is a generalisation)

I actually disagree. It's the vanity of it all that bothers me. What comes next, doggie earrings for Fluffy? Nose rings for your hipster Frenchie? What if this were to set a precedent and that was the next wave of doggie fashion. You can take your dog to a puppy tattoo parlour and get Rocky a nice big tattoo to make sure everyone knows he's a 'badass' Why can we not just love our animals as they are and not set a precedent for them further becoming an accessory or a fashion statement. It's not comparable to desex tattoos or working dog branding which actually serve a purpose, it's just vain and stupid and I would be seriously concerned if it took off. As for the woman with her 'my dog is cooler than yours' bravado. She sounds like a genius. Actually, I've discussed this with my sister, for her cats and my dogs. Name tags/identification in a lightweight form on an ear tag (or even through the loose skin on the neck) would, in my opinion, be a much safer alternative for both cats and dogs over the traditional collar. Basically, an ear tag/skin piercing when they are a young puppy/kitten, it will heal quickly, yet the hole will remain for life. As they age, you can change out tags etc to easily reflect current details, and worst case scenario is a ripped edge of the ear/skin tear requiring maybe a stich or two, as opposed to potentially hanging themselves to death if their collar gets caught. Unfortunately I haven't been game enough to do it because of stupid animal rights douchebags. They'd probably report me to the RSPCA, who would then come and kill all my animals because that's what they do.

probably collecting their dividends and gleefully rubbing their hands together every time a dog dies, at least that way it's one less that they have to kill.

I'm pretty sure Harley's cause of death is going to be bleeding on the brain. Without fail, at least 4 times a day he has his head in between two railings on the balcony so he can look at the goats. Fly buzzes past, he snaps at it, whacking the top of his skull on the railing above him. You'd think he'd learn! Mum's dog Jack on the other hand, biggest sook known to man. He's had a couple of surgeries recently (cruciate and then some lumps removed), and both times the vet has said he's the whiniest dog in the clinic. If he does something wrong at home and gets reprimanded, he starts limping, like "ooh, you yelled at me so hard you hurt my leg!!!"

My lot have varying levels of intelligence. Zehra (rotty x) is generally dumber than a bag of hammers, but she figured out very quickly that if she manages to sneak inside without permission, the best thing to do is to find somewhere quiet, dark and out of the way where she won't get noticed, whereas the others sneak in without permission and come straight up to me for pats Bones (husky x rotty apparently) is generally regarded as the dumbest of the lot. after almost 9 months of being with us, she still hasn't figured out the basic requirement of sitting down quietly and waiting for food. it's not even excitement at being fed, she just gets distracted really easily, wanders around, once or twice she's even gotten half-way into a sit without being told, only to get distracted and start walking around for no reason. However, she is the only one who's figured out how to open the back door. Harley (dobe x kelpie) is more biddable than intelligent, though he does have potential. Thundercleese (pigdog mongrelly thing) is both intelligent and biddable, but is hampered by his crippling need to be touching me all the time. He has issues with listening to me when off lead (only at home, he's the one with fear issues), because he seems to hear everything that comes out of my mouth as "come over here and touch me with your face." I think it might be related, but his recall is excellent! :p

Unfortunately size does factor into it. a king size bed is not big enough for 2 fatties and 4 big dogs + their drool. Sometimes I admit, I have considered getting rid of Nathan so I can have room on the bed for my puppies and me! Lucky for him, he's useful around the place! :laugh: So, I've gone with the only obvious solution to the dog dilemma: don't look at the sad eyes. if you can't see them, they don't exist! Nacho is very cute, and clearly belongs on the bed! :p

She looks so very similar to my Mum's BC x Lab, especially that slightly cross-eyed look of "why do you do such awful things to me?????" as you balance some new random object. Does Maybe do that thing where she turns her head ever so slightly until whatever's on her head falls off? Jack does that because if he's quick enough, he gets to eat it :laugh:

I get a lot of that if I'm stupid enough to walk Thundercleese when there's people around. Unfortunately he does kind of warrant it, being a large fear aggressive dog. Water off a duck's back to me though, I'd rather they got out of my way before he notices them! My favourite though was once when my sister and I walked him up to the shops, I stayed outside with him and he had established somewhat of a "safe zone" on a raised traffic island type thingy (edge of the carpark, not middle of the road.) guy pulls up in his car, walks over Thundercleese's safe zone, Thundercleese goes ballistic. A little while later, guy comes back, again walks over his safe zone, but Thundercleese was doing a fantastic job of trying to focus on me instead of the guy. As the guy got into the car, the change in movement triggered Thundercleese to break his focus on me, but before he had a chance to react, the guy told him (in the best dog-training voice I've heard out of someone who very much looked like a drug dealer :laugh: ) "what a good doggy! Such a good boy!!!" Thundercleese was so confused he didn't know what to do! :laugh:

It's honestly never occurred to me to invite mine up onto the seats at the vet. I don't have a problem with it though, but wouldn't personally do it as my dogs have all the grace of an epileptic camel on acid, so I'm sure would do nothing but embarass me. I love my dogs. Sometimes I'm surprised they don't fall off the floor.

Mine are either in the cab (if one or two) or in the tray of the ute (if all 4).One of the main reasons I bought my car (Rodeo ute with fibreglass canopy) is because of how cool it stays in the back. It was an accident really, I was looking at wagons etc on a disgustingly hot day and stopped for a rest. opened the tailgate of a similar ute to the one I bought to have a sit down and it was a good 10-15 degrees cooler in there than it was outside, even though it had been sitting in full sun all day. I have some rubber-backed marine carpet in there to make it softer and more grippable for their footsies, and I still stop often to make sure they're okay and give them water and a stretch :) The only improvements I want to make are sealing the canopy to the cab and removing the rear window so I can reach them (and yell at them when they're being idiots.)

My Harleydog (now at least 10, though a very young at least 10 :)) has recently decided that instead of delicately placing his paw on me when he wants a pat, he will come up and slam his body sideways into whatever part of my body is closest to him :laugh:

Fritz is the name of one of our resident (currently MIA ) huntsmans. Though I do like the name Fruck, my contribution was going to be Fedex :)

Better than what one of mine did (to this day, I don't know which one it was) : I thought they ate the whole little paper envelope which had worming tablets for all 4 in there, resulting in a very embarassing phone call to the vet, "no, I don't know which one it was, or if they ate them all or just part of them, none are displaying any kind of symptoms, no, they won't usually eat them willingly...". They all missed their worming tablet that month because I was so worried that one of them had already eaten enough to worm about 140kg of dog that I didn't want to overdose them anymore. Fast forward about 3 months, and we picked up the couch to shove it into the moving truck and what do we find? the paper envelope, complete except for one corner of the paper that had been ripped off and left on top of the couch (which is what made me think they'd eaten the whole thing in the first place!)