Leah82

Yes! Can't wait for that to happen :p and I have played the hide and seek game a couple of times, again it works best when I get home from work. but I'm slowly getting a better and longer tug out of both of them I am throwing in a couple of old commands in there as well like sit, drop, spin, rollover with our play tug sessions so they start to see the tug as a reward I've also pinned OH down for a training session this afternoon, need to get him understanding the IYC way of live. No matter how many times I've told him not to tell the dogs to sit before putting their dinner down he keeps doing it

thanks for the heads up MRB, I'll be fast asleep for the IC rego, although that's probably a good thing :D I had a bit of a break through last night, Collie and Sarah have finally realised that if I open a door for them they better wait until I say 'ok' otherwise it's not happening This has been my own little IYC game with the dogs because they love running through door ways and generally don't care if they bowl people over in the process Now to pull out the distractions and see how we go, maybe throw a few treats through first...

Sarah was being a very well behaved guinea pig in grooming school today :D now she's cuddled up next to me in blue tartan flannel pjs and black and white socks to stop her scratching a scab, looking like quite the bogan punk

Week 28/52: very similar pic to last week, who can spot the difference :p

I'm so sorry for your loss Raineth. RIP Digby, you were adored by people that never met you and will be cherished by the ones that did.

I had a bit more luck with tugging last night. I literally got out every toy that you could tug with and experimented. My dogs are a bit weird, they both prefer to get their teeth around a bit of normal sized rope, not the thick rope they usually have on tug toys. Oh well I'll go with it, I even got Sarah tugging by herself, usually she joins in with Collie and it's 2 against 1 (1 being me) Collie is getting really good at crate games and I'm managing to combine crate games, RZ and kids in the hall with the one game. I was playing crate games with Sarah last night and also training Collie to stay on the ottoman while I'm training sarah in the crate as we only have the 1 crate. All was fine until we got to yer in, yer out. It turned into yer in, yer out and then yer both in as Collie decided he wanted to join in as well :laugh:

Ok another question from me today. I've been playing tug with the dogs when I get home from work, it's practically impossible any other time. Collie has a pretty soft mouth most of the time but when he does get a good grip I'm not totally convinced he's enjoying the activity. He seems to whine out of frustration because he wants me to give him the toy and doesn't really move around much. On the rare occasion I can get Sarah to join in she seems to really enjoy it, she'll shake her head and have a bit of a growl

I had a friend work there when she was a vet student, that was a long time ago though. Good to hear it's still one of the better vets.

There is a link to a 3rd pic. Poo looks normal, I'd still want to know the reason for the bloody poos though

Absolutely ridiculous. I noticed lambex has a twitter feed as well so I tweeted my disgust with a link to the Facebook post

yup, good luck Sue and Waldo For those playing kids in the hall with a crate, how are you getting your dog back in the crate for the next time. With Collie I'm pointing to the crate and saying GO! he's driving into the crate and turning around eagerly waiting for the next time but I'm not sure if we should be putting a cue on it yet.

I hope your puppy gets better and I hope you share this story with your friends and family Yes it's very sad seeing puppies in pet stores but as long as people keep buying them the pet stores will continue to sell them. Puppies in pet stores generally come from puppy farms where only the dogs basic health requirements are attended to and mental stimulation and socialisation is little to none as they are kept in cages most of the time, this includes the puppies first 8 weeks of life. Ethical breeders will simply not allow their puppies to be kept in pet stores and sold to the first person that comes along. They do health testing on the parents to minimise the risk of genetic diseases or defects in the puppies and provide plenty of socialisation so they will become great family pets. With that they also make sure that potential puppy owners are well equipped to handle the needs of their particular breed which reduces the chance of them being resold or surrendered when they become adults. I know that you have your puppy now and I hope he turns out to be everything you want in a dog but by sharing your experience you might prevent someone else going through the same thing.

he is a gorgeous boy who loves his mum :D

It's getting pretty hard to find the time as well, after working Mon - Fri I've been spending Saturdays doing a grooming course for the past 3 weeks. I've only got 2 more Saturdays to go and then my weekends will free up a bit. Luckily our dogs are the least destructive dogs around, you can see when they're going a bit stir crazy but zoomies is usually the extent they will go to when they want to externalise their feelings

no new game today yet it's usually out by 3, Oh well I'm getting a little bit behind anyway. Need to get the crate into more interesting places, although with the weather I think the back room or hallway will be interesting enough :p

don't you know that only backyard breeders keep their dogs in the backyard, that's why they got the name :p

I lived with someone for a couple of months who she said she had a 'cavoodle' before moving in, but apparently she didn't like the curly haired ones in Perth where she lived at the time so shipped one over from Melbourne. Upon meeting the dog it was clear the oodle part was purely a marketing ploy created by the pet shop because it looked like this...

gorgeous pics Gapvic her hair looks so natural in the black and white pics, I assumed I knew what colour it was put she proved me wrong :p

Ok so playing RZ last night I'm a little confused how to get the dog in the zone to begin with, or if they break away from the zone. The only 3 options I see are: Lure them into the zone which is a big no no for recallers Place them into the zone which I find doesn't work well for my dogs because they need to do it themselves in order to remember Or step into the zone myself with them sitting, again they are not getting into the zone themselves and should I stick with one side until they get the hang of it or switch from left to right regularly. I'm happy to leave Collie on the left but I do want to continue with agility training with Sarah once we're through recallers

Thank you so much for that clarification...I had the impression that her dam was a full Dogue (de Bordeaux) and her sire was a Mastiff x Dogue. Wait - a quick google tells me that Dogues are known as French Mastiffs in some countries and Bordeaux Bulldogs elsewhere, so I've learnt something thanks!! I do know English Mastiff is a common misname for the breed here, as that is the breed name in America. Hybrid vigour for a trait will only apply when a single one of the breeds in an F1 cross carry that trait. When both breeds carry the trait (as in the diseases I listed that were common to both) there is exactly the same chance as the pure blood in either breed. That is why health scoring of the parents is so very important. And, I'm sorry to have to say, that in an F2 cross, rather than so-called hybrid vigour, puppies have chances of inheriting the recessive traits of different problems of BOTH grandparent breeds, even of traits not common between the two breeds. If both her parents were this cross, then your girl is an F2 cross and hybrid vigour no longer applies. But my fingers are crossed for her and I know you will take all possible precautions. Wishing you the very best of luck. A lot of genetic diseases are spread across so many breeds that hybrid vigour isn't exactly a reality in most cross breeds these days, especially when you have a mix of very similar breeds. The best way of making sure your pup has the best chance of a long and healthy life is going to a registered breeder that does the relevant genetic testing and scoring on the dam and sire. A lot of people still aren't aware this is being done so unfortunately the health issues of pure breeds in the past are still putting people off going to registered breeders now But you already have Kirby in your life so fingers crossed she got the good genes :) and treat is as a learning experience for the future. She is gorgeous btw

You want the reinforcement to come from you and while you know where the ball comes from the actual reinforcement that the dog gets is about moving away from you. I think I got that right, TSD or Kavik feel free to correct me If Zeph loves squeaky balls I'm sure you can find one on the end of a rope.

Week 27/52, bit of a lazy one for me this weekend but here is sarah looking all clean and fluffy after her bath.

It is definitely interesting noticing the difference between the 2. I've always said that Sarah is smarter, it's more common sense though. For example if her leash is under her leg she'll lift her leg to set it free where as Collie will just persevere and you have to stop him to get him untangled. Collie also gets carried away with his nose which often results in some really dumb decisions :p When it comes to learning new things though Collie definitely picks things up quicker, that might be practice though, he's been learning for 6 years where as Sarah has only being doing it for 1. Plus he's a lot more food motivated. I'm hoping recallers will help him make better decisions although I'm not sure 'you can't see so stop racing around and bumping into everything' will be covered though

Who's getting t-shirts and/or hoodies?

yep, high value treats make a big difference. Treat them once they step back providing you have your hand open and they'll slowly get the hang of it. I noticed a big difference in Sarah when she figured it out, she went from being really unsure about what was going on so she would just lie down and look away to looking intensely at the treat waiting for me to give it to her. Also don't forget if they are not going for the treat in your hand move the treats to the floor, this will perk up most dogs interest