Podengo

If I were to hire a dog walker I would just like them to go to my house and take my dog for a short 20-30 minute walk around my area on a leash. Just so the dogs would get a break from the house during the day. Luckily I work a split shift at work so I go home for a few hours in the middle of the day. I would expect the dog walker to have insurance, be a member of some sort of organization that rates their trustworthiness (like with house sitters) and have some sort of education in canine first aid, behaviour and training.

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I don't think you're being unreasonable at all. In my experience having spent years working in kennels, the more you give people the more they take and the more they demand. My boss went overseas to see a dying family member and left me in charge of their kennels with just their own animals being boarded there, and ended up taking two more cats belonging to a lady as a very special favour as she was desperate. This lady was the absolute bane of my life, turning up at all hours (we had told her we were closed to the public for the 2 weeks my boss was away) wanting to visit her cats, beeping at the house when I didn't come out and answer the gate, calling my boss on their holiday in the UK swearing about how I wouldn't let her in etc... When she relented I eventually had to schedule a time for her to visit her cats and she stayed for an hour longer than agreed to, and bitched and moaned about how the litter was too deep in the cats litter tray, the sides of the food bowls were too steep and the cats were obviously very unhappy as they weren't running around meowing at her like normal (they were sleeping up on a shelf in the sun and wouldn't come down!).

I use a harness and just put it on and attach the lead to drag around on the floor. They have all been pretty accepting after a couple of minutes. Lead training with a show lead took longer and I did that seperately as I didn't want ping to learn to pull on his show lead. There were some major theatrics when that went on the first few times

Out at the park today - Ping is nearly 6 months old! Where does the time go? Elsie & Ping playing chase, she loves having a buddy to chase her all the time :) Somehow photos do not accurately portray how tiny he is, as everyone who meets him is shocked at his size! I weighed him at work yesterday and he is 3.2kg! Such a teeny dog!

15.6! That's not a baby anymore!! She is bigger than Elsie now! And she is 5 and a bit Pings LOL Still looking very cute though, I hope her face stays that dark too!

The puppies are not tested, the parents are :) Depending on what hip scoring scheme is being used, they are usually X-rayed as full grown adults.

My experience is much the same as Tassie, there are a couple at my agility club... I would say they aren't quite as energetic as either vizsla or Brittanies but can be as easily distracted! If anything I would say vizsla and Brittany are softer, they really seem to crumple when growled at while the Welshie goes on merrily doing whatever it got told off for hahaha

Ping had a puppy play date with my friend's new giant puppy, she is super sweet and gentle (so weird for a giant!!).

I think the best option is a babygate with a built in cat door keeping the dogs out of the room with the kitty litter.

There are some working rotties in NZ, looking through the trial results I have seen a few IPOIII titled dogs. May be worth getting in touch with a club as they will know who the titled dogs are.

Elsie is a 13kg collie/terrier mix and Ping is a 3kg Podengo. They are best buddies and play a lot. In the house they play chase and he runs under all the furniture which infuriates Elsie, they don't play chase in the open as I don't allow it (she will run over the top of him). They also wrestle a lot, she is very very gentle with small dogs despite being absolutely crazy with other bigger dogs.

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If there's an animal physio near you it could be worth having a chat to them about some of the therapies they offer :)

We are just playing around with some foundation stuff. Collar grab game to condition him to liking having his collar grabbed (he was quite spooked by hands in his personal space at first and would dodge away from people if they tried to get his collar or harness) as it's useful in an emergency to be able to grab a dog's collar, and also we use it in agility to reset them. Working on transitioning between rewards and play with whatever is on offer, switching between toys and food... Because having a dog work for only one reward is a pain.. In agility it's handy to teach some things with food them transfer to toys to get the dogs moving faster. Leaving the food in the hand and on the floor is just a bit of working around distractions. Jumping over legs... Cos why not :laugh:

Huski she is beautiful! Her legs are so long already!!

I'm like, the biggest HHC fan!! I DJ HHC and gabber :D We fly to Australia a few times every year to party over there, there is no hardcore scene in NZ at all!

Some Ping training! You may wanna turn the volume down, added loud annoying music because I hate listening to dog training haha. Look how waggy and cute he is!!

Oooh you got one of the babies!! I met two of them today, their mums were running a seminar at my club :) Ping loved both of the girls! Which do you have? :D

Ping had his last vaccination at 14 weeks but still had plenty of new experiences before that. His breeder took him on lots of car trips and to work (vet clinic), then he went on a plane at 12 weeks! Once here he got go to work at my partner's office, go to my work (vet clinic) and meet all the staff there. He did a lot of car travel, went on a ferry, visited a car race track, traveled in a dog trailer, visited the houses of friends and family (with children and dogs). Ping also attended agility training and an agility seminar, both of which are places with a lot of dogs but they're not accessible by the general public, so I guess it's a measured risk.

My uncle's very elderly, blind and decrepit staffy climbed multiple obstacles to get onto a bench and ate an entire Christmas roast by herself. It was at least as big as her!!

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He has quite the fan club here, is is so out going and happy... Last night we turned up to agility training and he started going crazy when he realized where we were and barked at me the whole way while we walked to the training area. He totally loves the environment and isn't getting distracted by it all yet :D (I'm sure that's coming though!)

We had our first breed show this weekend - he was very cute and had a lot of fun!

My friend that breeds had a funny one with someone commenting that they would like to purchase a puppy for breeding from her (to be sent somewhere in Asia) as they had purchased from Aussie before and the bitch could not have puppies. They no longer trust Aussie dogs so please send a bitch of this colour sometime this year. Nevermind most of her dogs are Australian hahaha. Oh and she didn't have a litter on the ground and wasn't planning any for that year anyway.