Podengo

When Alfonzo is barking a visible warning our sheep tend to move towards him. They also chase after him if he takes off after a perceived threat :laugh: Hahaha that is very cute!!

Very cool photos, I so love seeing a dog doing what it was bred to do!

They're cute, never seen one in New Zealand before... Does anyone know if any have been exported here? Have not seen any LGDs here before actually...

I think it could be a good idea, at least just linking to their website with details... I think placing ads in places like trademe where people look for puppies online would be good.

Thanks! He is a giant schnauzer, if you head along to the schnauzer thread I post loads of photos of him there :) It was his first birthday a couple of days ago too hehe.

Small world!! I saw her results from Nationals - good on her! Hope she does really well at NDOA!

Is your daughter the one with the Aussie bred by Trudy by any chance? :)

Ooo yes you will! We're in special beginners :) Are you camping on site? Will be so neat to meet another DOLer! :D

Thanks! ^-^ She's a mutt, her mum was a smooth coat border collie (NZ heading dog) and her dad a jack russell. Thanks, and that was obedience :)

First show Happy first birthday to my gorgeous pup Elsie

First time at river First "clothes" First road trip

First friends First snow First beach trip

20 acres in rural Canterbury with native forest and a stream, a small boarding kennel with loads of awesome fenced runs and 2 full time staff to keep boarders entertained, an indoor training facility, a private fenced dog park for my friends to use, paddocks for some livestock and a big garden. Oh and a house lol.

Poppy Cricket

Yup, I feed the frozen - love it :) Heaps of my friends feed it, as do a lot of agility & dog sport people here in NZ.

Great pictures, looove the whippets! We always had chickens growing up... We had blackie, brownie, snowy and my personal fav - greyback!

Animates in NZ is supposedly shifting from selling breeder puppies to RSPCA puppies, but they still do have breeder puppies in whenever I look there. Cyberpets here in CHCH doesn't sell puppies, they have a little display on their counter with the "dog of the week" from Dogwatch (really nice shelter here)

The wedding photos in the links Huga posted make me wanna get married... So much cute!

It's already been mentioned, but yeah two puppies at once is absolutely not a good idea. I have personally never seen it work out, even with some experienced owners, and I see a lot of inexperienced families in my obedience classes with two puppies that have a lot of difficulty with the two of them. Going along to dog shows can be a great way to meet lots of different breeds, not just conformation shows but agility shows and even obedience shows can be good too. Most people are more than happy to chat about their dogs, as long as they aren't just about to go into the ring! :) All of the breeds you listed can require a fair bit of grooming work, particularly to keep them looking nice! Are you specifically looking for a coated breed, or are you open to smooth coated breeds too? I think mini poodles are great, very active, easy to train, quick learners, very clever (sometimes too clever for their own good!). Terriers are awesome too, they are very clever but some can be a bit harder to work with if you don't know what you're doing. I wouldn't recommend a Kerry blue for a first time dog owner. How small are you looking for? Less than 20kg? 15kg? 10kg? Do you like cocker spaniels? They aren't too big, and are certainly up for as much exercise as you can give them!

Gorgeous! I think I might need to take a walk to the botanic gardens soon!

I think it's good, if anything I agree that it should be more intrusive.

haha very cool!!

I run domestic obedience for a company (paid work) and an introductory agility class for a club (unpaid). The intro agility class is 8 weeks long, dogs must be at least 12 months old to attend and must have a decent recall and be controllable around other dogs. The class runs 8-9pm on a Monday night (including gear set-up time) at our club grounds (which is a high school) and this particular class is run on a fenced tennis court with floodlights. We have around 15 dogs each class with 3 instructors. We talk at the start, do a recap of what we covered last week and everyone gets a chance to talk about the training they did throughout the week, then we do some group training (usually looking at waits or tugging), then split into 3 groups of 5 to rotate around 3 modules with an instructor at each module. We find this structure works really well, and we mostly have a good number of dogs attending the full 8 weeks of class (usually lose 1 or 2). Of the 15 that start, usually 4-8 move up to the next class which we think is because the people struggle with the amount of training at the basic level, and putting in the effort in the next class which is a lot harder is quite daunting. For my domestic obedience I run classes for 5 weeks, with a maximum of 8 dogs in the beginner classes, and 6 in the intermediate classes. My beginner classes run on a Sunday afternoon for an hour (I usually run 3 or 4 of them so 2-3pm, 3-4pm, 4-5pm, 5-6pm) in a public park without lighting, and my intermediate classes run same time/same place on a Saturday. Beginner class is for beginners, we mainly focus on loose-lead walking and recall, with some other stuff thrown in for the sake of fun. Aggressive dogs are not welcome in class, unless I have worked privately with them beforehand as we have large numbers of puppies in the classes and we don't want to risk any babies having any big scares, and our beginners classes do not cater for aggressive dogs. I am the only trainer, and I do find it hard to make sure everyone is getting an even amount of help - I think I do spend too much time helping some individuals and look over others on occasion, I would love to have a helper but I don't think it's too viable an idea with the company I am with. I usually start the class by getting everyone to talk about how their training is going over the week (so they can admit if they have done nothing all week lol) and what struggles/great things they have faced and then work on an exercise or two, have a break and let dogs have a play/sniff/socialise/drink, and then back to doing some work, play some training games (often Simon says since it's easy for newbies), a little more work, then last 5 minutes is talk time so they can either go home, or hang out and chat (usually we sit around having an informal chat about anything dog related). I find some people really LOOOOVE my classes and sing my praises, super excited to be there and take everything I offer, then move on to agility because they want to continue training with me, some come to lesson one and never come back, I try not to take it to heart... I would rather have a class full of people who have fun training their dogs, enjoy the training, enjoy chatting and having a laugh, learn lots about themselves and their dogs and HAVE FUN!

Better late than never! My additions for the month.

LOVING the whippet photos!