**Super_Dogs**

My 6 month old lab is not feeling well today. When I feed her this morning she did not seem very interested in her food. She still ate though (typical lab). About 15 minutes after eating she threw up her food. I was not concerned at this time as she has been know to vomit up her food. However another 15 latter she threw up on the couch and just now, so another 2 hours latter she was just sick again. Now I am not surprised she has an upset tummy as yesterday she and another dog got into the rubbish while I was at work and ate what they could - was mainly vegetable/fruit scraps. I know dogs vomit and I am never usually concerned, but I have never had a dog vomit this many times so close together. So when should I be concerned? Any suggestions I of what I can try to settle her tummy? I don't think it is related but another of my dogs has had diarrhea. It was bad yesterday (started before the got into the rubbish) but she is on the mend today. Thanks.

Puppies are hard work!! Like others have mentioned, it is not recommended to have a tiotet area in the crate. If you do not want to make tiolet trips during the night attach a pen to the crate, keep the crate door open, and put the tiolet area outside the crate in the pen area. When you pup can last the night without tioleting, remove the pen and tiolet area and shut the crate door. There is an excellent DVD called 'Crate Game' by Susan Garrett which I highly receommend for crate training.

This Also - how many messages has your friend left? If she has only left 1 or 2, I would keep ringing. The breeder may have not got the message and have honestly posted the papers.

Training your dog and keeping it fun. Not forgetting the all important reward for working for you which is treats and a game/play. Keep training sessions short and high energy :-)

Thanks for the links. It is hard to find a good product reasonably prices so I can maintain the dosage long term!

Just a firm no and stop play or attention. My pup is 6 months and she now only mouths when she excited, for example when I get home from work, and she grabs my clothes. I make her sit before I pat her. It is a really good habit to get into as who wants a dogs jumping around them, but also is distracts her from the mouthing.

I have to agree with Cosmolo. My first few puppies I taught no biting ever. Then my third puppy I tried bite inhibitiion - as it makes sense :-) However it took years to succesfully phase out mouthing. So based on an unsuccesful attemp of bite inhibition last time my pup now we have gone back to no biting ever. If you can find a playmate for you puppy, this will help your pup learn bit inhibition. FYI - my dogs are labs.

I have 4 large dogs and we have grass. When we did our yard my OH spent alot of time researching grass as like everyone else our previous grass just turned to dirt! Our grass is called Tiff Sport. It is the same grass that is used on sports fields. There are a few stadiums in Brisbane and on the goldy that use this grass.

My eldest dog has always been an absolute B#%tch to our pups. The first one she was extremely put out and really put him in his place. I was very concerned, but the pup would always runs back to her. The second pup 4 years later she would growl when the pup walked past. It took her until the third pup, 6 years from the first, where she would let it jump around her. I would not be concerned - the pup is still very new. It may just mean you have to keep them seperated when unsupervised longer than intended.

This is after my pups first puppy class.

I just judge by how my puppy looks. If she is looking alittle slim, I just up the food by 1/4 of a cup. If you increase the food as you pup is looking alittle overweight, just reduce the ammount back. Unfortunetly there is no science to it!

Not only does it depend on the breed, it depends on the environment. When I was growing up we had to intact males Goldens. All was fine until my parent separated and the dogs moved with my mum and us kids. My father was the pack leader, so the dogs decided they needed to work out who was going to be the new leader. It was awful! They could not be in the same room without fighting. I have heard of this situation several times with various breeds

Me to!!! One of my labs will chew through a lead if tied up and also chew through all the other dogs leads. She will even chew through the other dogs lead is she is not tied up - she sets them free!! It is such a pain. I have also had little success with tug with my labs. My girl who is now 3 I tried using a tug toys with the food pouch, but she just would sit for the treat. So with my pup I have spent more time with her tugging. However she will only tug for a minute then let go. Labs are SOOOO food focused that tugging is not reward they want!!

I also recommend the DVD crate games. My pup fractured her leg when she was younger therefore I had to do an accellerated version of SG's method as she had to be crated immedietley. Our poor pup had to spend ALOT of time in her crate so you would think she would hate her crate. No - she runs into her crate no problems, no luring, even if I walk near the crate she runs in. As others have mentioned you need to build high value for the crate - the Crates Games DVD will help you achieve this.

Sounds like a helpful article, I might have to order the magazine to keep it on hand....then of course I will have to buy some other doggy stuff to justify the shipping charge.... ;) If you buy the digital copy, there is no shipping charge, you download it to your computer for just $5.00. It's the August 2011 which has the article in...here's the link http://www.cleanrun.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&Product_ID=2892&ParentCat=357 Thanks I decided to get the subscription for the year. Went with the digital, even though I prefer an actual magazine, as it is such s great price!!!

My first dog was a Rotty. Generally I don't know how difficult they are, but my girl was a challenge - to say the least. She was VERY dominant - and I was not use to this as I grew up with Goldens. She was also very stubborn. I rememeber calling my mum when she was about 6 months old saying "I just don't know what to do!!!". I persisted with her and she is now 8 years old and on the whole a very good girl. She still has her moments where she is hard work (some days she is more work than my 6 month old puppy!!!!), and she sometimes decides doing something naughty, like stealing food, is worth the punishment. Other days she is an angel. :D Although it was very frustrating I would not change anything as I learnt from my mistakes.

I have not experienced any problems with the spacing difference. I think the plastic set are great for learning and ideal for the 2x2 method. However when when your dog has 'got it' and you want to work on speed they are not ideal. My dog was not originally trained using the 2x2 method and she was really inconsistent. So I recently brough SG DVD and retrained her. She is going great. I am thinking I am going to have to invest in a metal base weave set soon so we can work on speed. Does anyone know where I can get a metal base weave set in Brisbane? And how much are they?

You can buy the plastic base ones at topbuy.com.au I used these to train the 2x2 method. Worked well Th set folds up into a bag, so so you can just move/bend the base into position for the 2x2 and take out some poles.

Sounds like you make the right decision. I say if is doubt - don't. The good things is now you know more so you will know what questions to ask the next breeder! Good luck.

If the breed average is 11 or 12 - I would say 16 is too high!

What is the score of each hip? The reason I ask is an even score is alot better. For example a 10:4 is not a good thing. Each hip should be close to even. If they are, as Shelot said, it is only 1 over the average. It is generally recommended to breed with dogs below the breed average, but this is so close. However I would definetly be looking at the elbow scores. I know with labs it is more likely elbows are going to cause issues than hips. The last thing you need to consider is hip/elbow scores are no guarantee. You can have a dog from great stock but can still have issues caused by the environment, for example over feeding and over excercise.

She could be playing as it is a bit like tag...it's not the sort of nudge that i would think she wants a pat as she usually does it on the run! Sound like it is a game :D

The ideal way to toilet train is to crate train your puppy and take them outside regularly to toilet and have no toilet area inside (newspaper or pee pads). There is no question having an inside toilet area make the tiolet training process slower. However the reality is most people are not home all the time so they do need an inside toilet area. Also if you do not have an inside tiolet area you will need to wake up several times during the night to take your puppy out to tiolet. As I work I have always used an inside newspaper toilet area and never had any problems toilet training.

My pup loved the pee pad - not to pee on but to rip apart. I have has other people tell me their pups did the same thing. I would go with newspaper.

My litter this year ventured outside when they were 4 weeks. I fenced off an area within the yard for them. Would have been kaos with 8 puppies roaming the whole yard!!!