disintegratus

Wouldn't surprise me at all to be honest. In my eyes, the RSPCA has about as much credibility and deserves about as much respect as Pets Paradise.

The worst was I've had was before I moved out of my parents place, both dogs slept with me, the collie x lab and the jack russell. Mum started accidentally overdosing the JRT on fish oil, so twice in two nights, I woke up to a god awful smell with diarrhoea smeared all over the bed, meanwhile the collie x lab is sleeping peacefully next to me, but the JRT has realised what a mess he's made and has quietly nicked off and is sleeping on the nice clean floor. Little bugger!

Fantastic to hear :) It can be so frustrating not being able to do anything but wait, but time heals all wounds as they say :) Hopefully all your health problems are looking up too?

I can't give my dogs as many boredom toys as I used to because my sister's pig gets at them. But before he came along they would get heaps of stuff. pretty much anything homemade as my dogs are all destructosauruses. Milk bottles with kibble were always a favourite. I give them ice blocks on hot days, but sometimes I feel bad for them because they go stash their ice blocks only to go back hours later and think some nasty being has stolen them! :laugh:

Forgot to add - one time Nathan and I went camping and took Harley and Thundercleese who were both absolutely angelic the whole time (and being so deep in the scrub, the only time Thundercleese is allowed off lead when not in a yard is when we're camping). One night there were some very strange noises (in hindsight probably a roo or something) both of them went into full guard mode, standing in front of us very protectively but still being very obedient. I was very proud that night :) I'm glad it didn't escalate beyond an "unknown threat", because I think I would have ended up being very dissappointed (and probably serial-killed :p)

Mine are all mongrels. If no one's home, they put on a great show of barking and carrying on. On their own, Harley is not confrontational at all, and would bark from a distance. Bones I think would engage, but only if the person was acting oddly/suspiciously. Thundercleese would engage, but I think his reaction would be the same whether I was home or not: Big scary dog from far away, the best we can hope for if they made it inside the gate would be a nip on the bum then run away. Zehra would sleep through it, then if they made an effort to wake her up, would be all over them for belly rubs and pats. They're very good when I'm home though. Most recently there was a guy wanting me to change electricity companies. I always go outside to talk to people at the front door, partly because 4 massive dogs, and also because I don't want them in my house. Anyway, this guy came to the door, and the rest of them went back and lay on the couches, but Thundercleese just stood intimidatingly behind the front screen door. Then when the guy wouldn't go away, eventually I had enough of being polite and just opened the screen door a little bit. Right on cue, Thundercleese gave him a low deep "you need to leave now" growl, so I held the door just a little bit open until he buggered off. I would never praise him for growling, but he couldn't have played the part better if I'd trained it into him :) Physical confrontation: Again, Thundercleese is the only one I can count on to even try to protect me. My best mate and I were having a play fight in the backyard once, and it was getting quite violent, so Thundercleese ran up (he'd been barking at us for a little while), nipped him on the bum, then ran and hid behind me. It was kind of adorable to see this 40+kg dog trying to hide behind my knees!

You have to take everything you read with a grain of salt these days, especially if it involves the RSPCA who are a bunch of bulldust-flinging hypocrites themselves without the added journalists twist. Just recently there was that case of the guy who knowingly transmitted HIV to a woman. His profession was absolutely irrelevant, however was constantly being reported as "acrobat gives HIV to woman" etc. Just as every time there's a drug bust, it was bikies who had snakes. So... one time I saw a motorbike on the road, and I have pet snakes, so I must be a drug kingpin.

Yep :laugh: what's ours is theirs... :laugh: More like what's mine is theirs, and what's theirs is in tiny pieces all over the floor and the couches... :p LOL, disintegratus . . . . . hence your name ?? It is a case in this house, too, that every room is their room. :laugh: :laugh: I never really thought about it, but you're spot on!

Definitely something to consider. Sometimes douchey neighbours just aren't worth it.

I don't know if it would be quite big enough, but my parents just got a big dog bed from costco. it's rectangular, with "arms" on the back and one side, and by god it's comfy!! I had a cuddle with Jack on it today and I could have had a nap on it! And only $55 or so, so very cheap! Jack's a collie x lab, and it could easily fit two of him on there (if he'd share, which he wouldn't :p)

Definitely put him in a run if you can, something with a solid roof and overhang so they can't throw anything into it. As for their voyeuristic tendencies, I can come over and parade around naked for a while, that'll put them off or send them blind, one of the two!!! :laugh: Having dealt with neighbours from hell (mine weren't as bad as yours, she was just a nosy bitch who didn't know how to mind her own business, eventually escalated to court ordered mediation, then we moved out), I wish you the best of luck, and advise you to record absolutely EVERYTHING. Even if it seems mildly annoying but insignificant, keep a note of it. And I hope you're patient, because it can drag on and on and on. Before you get into the resulting sh*tstorm though, if it's possible, maybe you can talk to her? Maybe she's one of those people who have horrid misconceptions about GSDs, and she thinks that it's going to turn into a viscious killer or something. Perhaps it could help to have her and/or her children meet the dog, get to know him and realise he's just a fluffball with adorable ears? Of course, that will only work if you're already on speaking terms with her, if she's just psycho it probably wouldn't help. :/

Yep :laugh: what's ours is theirs... :laugh: More like what's mine is theirs, and what's theirs is in tiny pieces all over the floor and the couches... :p

I have no idea where I got the idea from, but it has been suggested to me to instead of spending hundreds of dollars buying beds for my 4 idiots, to buy them a cheap old couch off ebay or gumtree etc. When it gets worn out, replace :) I looked into getting mine cut-down futon mattresses, I figured half a single size bed would do for a bed for each of them, but found out it would be cheaper to buy whole mattresses.

With my lot, it's mostly just me offering to pay people to take them!! :p

This is true, but there's nothing really in our yard that could cause that to happen, only the other dogs. All the tree branches are either too high up to reach, or very small shrub-type branches not strong enough for them to get stuck on. Although, now that I've said that, I think I may have to rethink my strategy. Harley lost his collar yesterday afternoon at some point and I cannot for the life of me find where it is. I've scoured the yard three times, and it's just vanished.

I'm the same, Rosetta. I am really paranoid about the dogs getting out, since one of them is very stupid (she will go to anyone, for any reason. She once tried to go home with some people at the dog beach even though she'd never seen them before), and one of the others had a short bout of escape-artist-ism about a week after I picked him up from the pound (he used to belong to a friend of mine, friend moved away and eventually Harley ended up at the pound through no fault of his own or my friend, and I went to pick him up, to look after him until we could find him a forever home, which was 5 years ago now :p) During that time he chewed through the fence 4 times in about 2 weeks, and if he hadn't been wearing a collar with a nametag I don't know if I would have gotten him back. That said, my dogs all wear flat leather collars which are on very loosely, so they are very easy for them to slip off, which they do on a regular basis. The collars only get tightened when we're going out and about. There's nothing really in our yard for them to get caught on, but if they do, they all know they can back out of the collar, I've seen them do it while playing with each other.

Haha, I know what you mean! At my last job, we'd be there til 2 or 3 in the morning, and the place next door had these 2 huuuuge GSDs as guard dogs. They would go nuts barking and carrying on if anyone else got too close, but I made friends with them. They were just big snugglies really :)

3 of mine do it too. Stop, poop a bit, walk, stop, poop a bit, walk etc. I just assumed it was to make my life difficult :laugh:

I didn't know the police force was now using adorability as a weapon against crime! :p

not quite dog rolls, but I use hot dogs from costco :) I chop them up, and just grab a bag frozen. They looooove them, and don't care if they're frozen or thawed! Admittedly I could probably use rocks as treats, my lot are garbage guts, but a friend of mine had great success using them and her little dog is super picky :) Don't forget about a bag of them in the car for a week when it's hot though They're probably made entirely of lips and bumholes, but they're tasty anyway!

Not so much "cheaper", but if you're going to renovate the bathroom anyway (and probably easier if you're planning on having a walk-in shower), you could get a large enough ledge built into the shower recess for the dog to stand on :)removable ramp and you're good to go! I have big dogs, so it's not as bad, but after I've washed all 5 of them (including my mum's dog, as I usually do them all at once), my back hurts like nothing else! I can only imagine how much worse it would be if they were all little ones!

Yep, a good big marrow bone (frozen if it gets warm) will keep her occupied for ages! Maybe take her to a secluded beach (so she doesn't get harassed by other dogs) and hold her out in the water to "swim", plus that should mentally exert her for a while as well, just with the combination of sights and smells. A harness would make life easier for that too I reckon. If you've got a bit of spare cash (probably not if she's had massive vet bills ) you could try one of those fandangled mental stimulation toys they have. I can't think of any off the top of my head, but most of them look a bit like toddler toys, with sections you hide food in, and they have to push the partitions around to be able to get at it. Another one that might be alright would be a Busy Buddy, kind of like a kong, but it's flatter, so shouldn't get away from her too much. You could try maybe tying a knot in a short piece of rope and threading it into the kong so you can attach it somewhere so it can't get away from her. I hope she gets better, and good on you for being so dedicated. :)

:laugh: What poor puppies, having to sleep on bare concrete! :p (let me guess - they ate the bed? :p :p :p)

I agree :) I don't have kids, don't want them. I honestly don't know what I'd do if it came to a burning building scenario type thing between random strangers or my pets. With family, yeah, I'd probably save them first, but either way I don't know how I'd be able to live with myself. Nathan's pretty aware that he comes first, but by a very very very small margin. And if he put me to an ultimatum, well, he'd be out the door before he'd finished the sentence. I'm a firm believer that in most situations, anyone who makes you choose isn't worth choosing. He also knows that I'd give him (and all the animals, and my stuff, and well, pretty much everything) up in a heartbeat if I could have my heart rat Zero back. I think it's nice that he's accepted the fact that he'll always hold second place in my heart to a dead rat :laugh: He's a good man :) And as for preferring the company of animals, well, it's not so much that I prefer animals to people as I just don't really like people very much. Never have :)

Haha Stan... :laugh: :laugh: We have the same problem with my sister's mini-pig, he'd open the fridge door, grab a bag of carrots and bolt to the end of the backyard to enjoy his tasty reward! Our fridge is in a kind of L-shaped space, next to the bench up against a wall, so we've just turned it side on. It's a bit of a pain, but working so far, until he figures out that he's got enough bulk to actually move the whole fridge!