suziwong66

Sorry smisch, but that's bollocks!!!!!!! I've had yellow and now chocolate; no behaviour difference. The chocs at obedience are no different to the yellows or blacks. In fact in regards to excellent behaviour there's a chocolate female at obedience that is a stand-out. I've heard this rumour before and i've never found any factual evidence to support the claim; there are chocolates used in a number of guide dogs associations across the world.

Desexing before sexual maturity can also produce a more lanky slimline lab; as others have said for natural slimline lankiness the US bloodlines are what you'd be after. She's a beautiful looking dog :D

i paid $1400 for Wulbur a registered choc lab: he was born last June. $1400 was the average price at that time. There were a few around $1200 and a few a little more expensive, but none over $1600. Chocolate isn't rare; it's just another colour. Puppies on the main register shouldn't be any more expensive than those on the limited register. Look for another breeder; looks like a scam.

But do you mean by this that you work from home? If so, should not the categories still be inclusive of this? No, i don't work from the home. I'm currently not working by choice. So that means you are unemployed. Unemployed simply means that you are not employed, not that you are looking for and unable to obtain work. That is not correct. 'Unemployment', defined by the International Labour Organization, occurs when people are without jobs and they have actively sought work within the past four weeks". I am not seeking employment.

But do you mean by this that you work from home? If so, should not the categories still be inclusive of this? No, i don't work from the home. I'm currently not working by choice.

i'm not retired or unemployed; i currently choose not to work outside the home. Can you edit the poll again pls? Perhaps something like Not Employed Outside the Home?

I usually walk the beach with Mia ... But it has become crazy down here ( we go Brighton, somerton ,Glenelg ). I will keep an eye out , it's a danger to have a dog like that loose .... He gets to practice aggression and will get better at it as he gains confidence . I can only hope these ppl have decided he is too much of a danger , before another dog or kid is hurt . I encourage the OP to report the incident. Many years ago when miss19 was about four or five we were at a beach in Qld having a casual stroll in the evening. A couple were walking their GSD off lead. They were over 50 meters away from miss19. We were wandering ahead of her; she had stopped to play in the sand. We turned around to call her and watch in horror as the GSD began running incredibly fast toward her in an attack stance. We screamed out to her in a panic to stand still; she stood up. The dog pulled up just meters from our daughter after she stood up. We think, (but will never really know why) that the dog thought our daughter was a small dog and realised she wasn't when she stood up. Given the large size of the dog and the diminutive size of our daughter, i really don't think she would have survived an attack by the dog; it was zeroed in on our daughter with intent. Every time we go to the beach here in Adelaide (usually Henley, occasionally Glenelg) we always see dogs off-lead at inappropriate times. I don't care whether or not someone's dog is friendly or has fabulous recall, the rules are the rules and we with dogs have to comply whether we like it or not.

We started with dangly tags but after a mishap with another dog at obedience we changed to Boomerang Collar tags

my list wouldn't make 5: 1. Labrador 2. Beagle

Intrusive question or not, you want to know for your self, I feel you should do your own survey and not do it under the banner of a business. +1 If the OP wants to maximise business and has questions that pertain to that purpose i'd be happy to answer questions. I don't understand why my choice of breeder and other personal questions are relevant to anyone else and I wouldn't answer them. "i am interested in the source of where they were purchased from on a personal level" is no one's business but mine and it is a very intrusive question. Gathering personal information for ones own personal interest under the guise of a business is misleading.

without a clear purpose for a customer survey i can't really help you. If you're just gathering information, if i were a customer, i wouldn't complete the survey.

we were going to train Wilbur to use a bell to let us know when he wanted to go out to toilet, but as it happened he's quite vocal and will tell me when he needs to go out. At night he'll yelp loud enough to wake me up; i sleep down the other end of the house to him - he's in the lounge in his crate. In the beginning he slept in his travel crate next to my bed and as soon as he shuffled during the night i woke up and took him out. When/if Wilbur sleeps in the house out of his crate, i'll train him to use the bell. Till then, i'm happy with the yelp which translates to "wake up mum, i need to go"

if you were in SA i'd happily do your food photography & teach you what little i know. But as a food blogger who does their own photography i'd encourage you to 'just jump in' and give it a go. You learn heaps just from the process. Check out my blog; i use a range of pics...old scanned ones as well as more recent digital format as i tell the story of the food. So don't feel you have to feel too precious about your photography. I've had a rest from blogging in the last year, but here's on of my fav more recent blogs about butterfly cakes to be honest, learning how to use a good photo editing suite has been my biggest challenge.

That price range is what i'm expecting with Wilbur when he's 18 months old when we plan to get him desexed. I figure he'll be around that weight then.

We did intensive crate training for a few months when Wilbur came to us at 8 weeks. Even now at 6 months when Wilbur gets out of his crate i throw in a couple of treats so that the next time he comes into the house he heads straight for his crate knowing there's a few treats in there for him. Occasionally i forget to put a treat and he just goes straight in looking for treats. If there's lots of activity, i make sure his crate is out of the way so he can be less distracted. That way he'll settle quickly.

you will definitely manage

Can i suggest to make your goal more attainable that you consider doing a diploma of education studies or other appropriate bridging course at the uni level to equip you with the necessary skills at uni? I'm suggesting this because the vast majority of mature aged students who drop out (usually in the first semester) do so because they don't have the necessary skills to succeed in an undergrad degree eg writing, critical thinking etc I did one before i went to uni and it made uni life a breeze because i was academically prepared. In contrast many of my mature aged peers really struggled in the first year and a number dropped out. I had done TAFE Cert iv and diplomas (in business & administration) before, but uni was a whole different kettle of fish in terms of academia; it's much more cognitive in nature where as TAFE was more practical in nature. Good luck; i hope you achieve your goal.

When anyone else read the cat part, did the little voice in their mind read it in a Daria voice; or am i alone in my madness???

i voted 'I dislike cats" because there wasn't a category that really described my feelings. I generally don't like cats, but i have met a few kitties that were sweet; not sweet enough for me to want one though

I had a good and not so good experience today with Wilbur in our main shopping street. We were sitting on the bench at our local coffee shop. A mum with a 4yo girl asked really politely if they could pat Wilbur. I said sure and we had a little chat about the best way to proceed. I told mum & little girl that as soon as Wilbur's bottom came off the ground they would need to step back until he sat down again. Mum explained that little girl is scared of big dogs as a family friend has a 4yo lab that is out of control and this frightens the little girl. She thought that maybe since Wilbur was sitting quietly they could have a meet & greet. It worked out great for everybody. Wilbur very quickly rolled onto his back and enjoyed his scratches. The little girl was less frightened while Wilbur was laying back and she didn't have any contact with is face. She was happy to scratch his tummy and he was in heaven on his back with legs splayed outwards It was a perfect social interaction with strangers; no lunging at all. Soon after the mum & little girl left a bloke in his 30s, i'd guess, walked up to us (i first thought he was walking past us) and went straight down to Wilbur and patted him and then asked if he could. I told him that firstly he should never approach a dog and pat it without asking the owner first. I then explained to him that we are teaching Wilbur to self-regulate and by patting him while he wasn't showing acceptable behaviours the unwanted behaviour is reinforced. He looked suitably chagrined so i left it at that.

We've had many similar experiences in the last four months since Wilbur came home to us. I'm happy for him to have contact with strangers, but only in situations that will benefit Wilbur's development. This means it needs to be controlled so that Wilbur has every opportunity to learn self-regulation. We've had a lot of people lunging toward him without asking first. This is exactly what i'm not happy with. I'm trying to teach Wilbur that lunging is bad manners and that he has to regulate his behaviour before he gets any reward of pats/attention because when people lunge forward Wilbur thinks he can lunge too. One lady ran up to him and thrust her face into his for puppy licks. I quickly pulled him out of her reach and told her that was a really stupid thing to do to a dog that she didn't know. One of our local large pet stores has staff members who are some of the worst offenders! Our best experience so far has been at Adelaide Dog: a small pet store. The staff were fabulous at understanding the behaviour expectations i have of Wilbur. This cute 6 month old puppy won't be so cute when he's 35+ kg and lunging forward at a stranger! We had a fabulous experience yesterday, where Wilbur got all the pats he wanted as did the staff and Wilbur experienced the way he is supposed to greet people; calmly and on his bottom. The world may well be unpredictable but as a large breed owner i have a responsibility to teach my dog self-regulation in as many social situations as possible so that he knows how to behave. Wilbur is getting much better at not lunging forward for pats. He is starting to regulate his own behaviour and sit and wait for cuddles/attention etc.

our plan is forever, since the doggy socialisation is so much fun for Wilbur. We would eventually like to trial, but more important is teaching him to self-regulate at home and out-and-about. We go twice a week and we also do once a month 'puppy' agility. Our club offers both morning and night obedience classes (on Tuesdays) and we take advantage of both since our yearly membership covers all classes. Going to obedience doesn't give you a reprieve from maintenance training once you've done all the levels before trialling. You will need to do maintenance training to keep the behaviours; it's a generally case of if the dog doesn't use it they lose it.

Wilbur 9 days old 46 days old Yesterday 6 months & 1 day old.

I bought this crate from Vebo pets located in Belmore, NSW. On eBay they trade as Easypets. I had it freighted from Sydney to Adelaide, but i had seen it at the Sydney warehouse before i ordered it so i knew it was good quality. We also got one of their styles of crate covers, which after washing shrank a bit. I'm going to make my own crate cover that won't shrink. This crates comes with two plastic trays.

Sorry to hear abour your miscarriage I still see you're keen on getting a Labrador puppy. Of course there are exceptions, but to go with the quote above, Labradors are not known to be serial barkers. They don't tend to bark for no reason. I have one Lab who I very rarely hear her bark, even when she's aroused. She once almost sighed a woof at me in frustration when we were training The other barks at random stuff but she doesn't bark her head off. So I don't really class Labs as "barky" dogs. But as I said, there are exceptions, before I get others jumping on me that theirs does in fact bark! +1 neither of our labs have been serial barkers...when there's a bark it's usually for a reason....