Life Of Riley

I find it terribly sad that these kids will never know the love of a dog. My 4 year old son has been taught that not all dogs are friendly and he always asks before patting a dog, but he loves our 3 dogs and they all adore him.

I have a fence jumper, she amazed us at being able to jump a 10 foot colourbond fence, the only thing that stops her is a roof. We now have a 5 metre x 20 metre yard for her with a shade cloth roof which has stopped her for the last 18 months. I didn't want to chain her up and this still allows her the freedom to play in a yard. We were lucky she has no idea about digging so she has grass in her yard. We considered having her PTS but with a lot of work and Prozac she has become manageable. Fence jumpers are not a dog I would ever consider rehomable, especially if there are aggression issues.

The Newfoundland Club of Victoria has them for sale, check out their facebook page.

We are in a semi rural area and we don't have a huge problem with snakes, in 18 months we still havn't seen any but they are around the area, there are a few farms which have seen snakes. We check the yards before letting any dogs out but my partner says that because I am so obsessive about our grass looking like a golf course the snakes have no where to hide. Our yards are 20m long by 5 metres wide and we have 28 of them and a large 80m x 5 metre yard so it does take a while to check them all.

I just opened my boarding kennels, it was a very long and expensive process. We were lucky that the property we purchased had the kennel building as it was previously used for greyhounds but it still cost around $100,000 to renovate the kennels, kitchen, do all the fencing, advertising, concreting, council permits ect and that of course doesn't include purchasing the property. The permit process is long frustrating and exhausting. I listened to what everyone told me, I am a vet nurse so I have a lot of contacts in the animal industry. I had a list of everything I wanted and then i had to be realistic and decide what was essential. We are a small kennel that have 20 - 30 dogs at a time, We decided that seperate grassed exercise yards were essential as we don't mix dogs from different families and clean facilities were the top of our list. Ultimately you will never please everyone, decide what is important to you and stick with it.

My newfie only wears a light coat when in the rain and isn't too impressed when I put that on her :)

Im so sorry to hear about Lola, my thoughts are with you.

I think some dogs do enjoy the company of other dogs however in a boarding environment I don't think it is in the best interest of the dogs to have them mixing with unknown dogs. I am opening my kennels soon and it will be my policy to not mix dogs from different families, which will turn some people off boarding their dogs with me but after talking with an animal behaviorist I believe the risks are too high. Not all boarding kennels are bad, in my research to open my kennels I have come accross some wonderful kennels.

Looks like an Iris cyst, my dog had one years ago, I took him to the eye specialists and they zapped it with a laser.

Malaseb Shampoo has always worked for me.

My Newfie had elbow surgery with Charles Kuntz from South Paws, that was 15 months ago, Charles was wonderful and my girl recovered perfectly, we have had no problems since.

I told my OH I wanted a newfoundland and he said no so I said I wanted to get a horse and I was allowed to get my newfoundland

I have always done everything I can to prevent my dogs getting out, I had 8 foot fences and padlocked gates and yet my neighbour knocked down our fence with an excavator, lucky my rotty Riley knows his boundries and won't leave the yard, Riley went and slept in the house. Hate to think of what the council would have done to him had he left the yard.

I have a client that since her dog was attacked she carries an air horn, she said it works but i'm sure it would scare every dog in the neighbourhood.

This just happened to a lady I know who has 2 chocolate Labs, both are fantastic well socialised and obedient pedigree Labs and she had the council called on her whilst she was down the beach because someone thought her dogs were pit bulls because of the colour of their noses. A lot of stupid people in this world