LisaCC

You can do both, but I think it depends on the condition. I looked into a seizure response dog, and when I first looked into it you had to go through an organisation and it could take years to even start the process, now I believe that you can train an existing dog and get it certified. If my seizures ever start becoming uncontrollable again I will be looking into training either my current dog if he's still young enough or a new dog. This is interesting. I met a woman with a young dog of her own that she claimed was a service dog because it would tell her when she was about to have a seizure or when her blood sugar levels where out of whack. She already had the dog and said she got it qualified as a service dog. It was still quite young and I was skeptical it could do what she claimed. I beleive she has a web site and facebook page where people can donate money towards his upkeep. Thats a seizure ALERT dog. Some dogs seem to have this ability to sense a seizure before the person even feels their "aura". I would be interested to see her link. I did look into this as well and all the information I could find at the time -6 years ago, was that there was no place in Australia training Seizure Alert dogs. Seizure RESPONSE dogs, respond to a seizure, they can be trained to stand guard over you, press emergency call buttons, drag you off the road etc if it's in a bad spot.

To add to that I completely expect people to question me if I do end up with an assistance dog. I'm young and fit looking and you would never be able to tell from the outside I have epilepsy. I find most people automatically expect to see labs and goldies as the dog too, so if you have a different breed you might seem more "suspicious" too.

You can do both, but I think it depends on the condition. I looked into a seizure response dog, and when I first looked into it you had to go through an organisation and it could take years to even start the process, now I believe that you can train an existing dog and get it certified. If my seizures ever start becoming uncontrollable again I will be looking into training either my current dog if he's still young enough or a new dog.

Thank you :) From what I've seen of his siblings he has a lot more coat than average. Ezio sounds like a very lovely easy puppy!

Currently trying night out of crate again, he is currently sleeping right next to me I figured if I keep putting him straight back into his crate for the night if he gets up to mischief he should get it eventually.

Thats a lovely story. I will never forget this vet either, she left the clinic a few years ago to move back to the city, but when Sam passed we sent her a card thanking her for his extra 5 years. She was always talking about him like her own because he was her first serious case. Before she left she had a baby and leant down and introduced Sam to the baby at the clinic, thats how close she became to us.

We get a lot at our school of Animal and Vet, but yea... don't want to upset too many people.

I LOVE HIM!

I'll add to the photos, I already posted this in the Aussie thread but I like it :) Nova is finally looking in proportion. I'll have to get someone to take a photo when I stack him because from my untrained eye I think he's looking good atm :)

Nala is gorgeous! Cleo looks like she's being so good with her too. Hank OMG He's got that beautiful retriever smile now! My lab looked so much like that as a pup, I want to cuddle him

First year vets have to learn somehow. The only reason Sam survived past 7 to 11, was because a first year out Vet actually believed me when I said something was wrong. She spent months treating him and even having conferences with specialists for free just to figure out what was going on and why treatment wasn't working. If everyone refused to work with first year out vets there wouldn't be any experienced vets in the first place.

My last boy would get flaky skin from a certain medication. When it was really bad our vet gave us a home made recipe for an oatmeal "mask" to put all over the dry skin on his stomach, he would just lay on his back getting pats for 30minutes until I washed it off. From memory it was buttermilk oatmeal and a few other things, would of been completely edible It worked well.

The only time I've ever put a dog on a seat at the vet is when Nova hadn't finished all his vacs yet, but getting heavy and I was injured, the vet nurse put a fresh clean towel on the seat and said a could plop him on that

She has the most hilarious face

Hmm... what if you put shade cloth on top of the tarp?

Aliwake that's great you guys are finally sleeping! I remember the roubles you were having. Thanks Aliwake and Kanae, I don't want to increase the length of our normal training too much at this stage, as I want to keep it SUPER fun and my trainer agrees, he is still only 7 months so we have plenty of time to increase time between rewards etc. I think I need to find a place with a few well behaved dogs in the distance and do some more distraction training, they are surprisingly hard to come by though! Kanae that is great that Ezio is being a good puppy! I hope he stays that way

Nova loves bitey face which almost always turns into a chase, but is also weird and likes to lick other dogs mouths, until his entire head in inside another dogs mouth *Featuring MUPs horse puppy...

My puppy had very loose stools when he came home but thats because he was being fed raw chicken and we soon found out he was intolerant (few poop explosions later ). As soon as we made the switch to a good quality dry (Proplan puppy at the time actually) and turkey necks instead of chicken frames they were nice and firm. Now on his new grain free diet they don't even smell!! I've heard a lot of puppies can have loose stools when they arrive simply from stress.

Good idea! When I went to Petstock the other day I got some free samples of "ice bones", they are basically just beef stock in a bone shaped container you freeze and pop out. Nova put it away after a while, he got a bit of a shock when some one had obviously stolen it from his hiding place because it "disappeared"

Thanks! I made up some sardine iceblocks for him today actually :)

Thanks Ness for the hide and go seek idea. He knows to target a coaster when I ask him to, so I started slowly hiding that, just spent half an hour with him madly looking for it, pouncing on it like an arctic fox then rushing back for a tug! I inadvertently got a more reliable 'out' from the game too

I just got an email about a 4 day christmas sale starting tomorrow at Pet Barn. Big things that stood out was 20% off flea and tick 6 packs, and ALL 12-15kg Pro Plan for $89!! For anyone feeding the new sensitive one that's mighty cheap!

I use MapMyWalk, might have to upgrade to the doggy version

I'm not sure if my body language changes, I'll have to take notice of it when we go back in the new year. He's been super distracted by the other dogs the last month or so, we stick the the far outside now. I think a big thing is that when I do training at home and at parks I don't let it run very long, I play lots of games in between and reward him with some exploring time. Where at training it's of course much more restrictive and much much longer sessions then we normally do. We normally leave training early before he starts getting frustrated. Willow a sock thief?? But her face is so innocent

Hanks a good boy then! I left the aircon on all night, my weather app is telling me it's already 30, it's only 8:30am! Nova is currently playing in his paddle pool after some morning training. I need to find a way to film us, he's doing an awesome job at heel work in the back yard and at parks etc, but it drops heaps when we get to training. So I'd like to show his trainer what he can do so she can help us get like that at training. I was so impressed with him this morning, right up on my leg, eye contact the whole time!!! I'm loving having a dog that is so motivated by a bit of tug!!