Leah82

Haha not quite pushups, more like yoga childs pose but without arms stretched out so much and head facing forward :p would be great if I could get her to copy me with other stuff

Great video Jen :) and very cute puppy. Unfortunately conventional methods didn't work with my rescue puppy (7 yr old puppy) :p I finally got her to drop by dropping myself in front of her, now she's a pro

I've been reading that thread closely. Hopefully Reba can start to relax with her pups soon. I really want to see pics of the pups but completely appreciate that SLF has more important things to do. fingers crossed things keep getting better for whole family

I think next week I'll skip obedience and just head down for agility. She was ok for most of the obstacles, she's gotten a lot better at jumps after only 3 brief experiences with them (to start with she was jumping about a foot higher than she needed to), she hasn't really had much experience with the tyre hoop which I think put her off a bit. Surprisingly she seemed to be enjoying the tunnel and we got her running though it with me calling her along the side. and we have Underdog Training coming for a visit to check out our crazy cocker this week so I might bring it up with them as well :)

the club is pretty busy but we've been going there for obedience for nearly 6 months so she's used to the area, I think it's the obstacles themselves that are putting her off. She does like to tug a bit but generally only when she's really excited which is hard to do on cue

So Sarah and I had our first agility lesson yesterday. She managed most of the obstacles ok, a bit hesitant around some more than others which is to be expected but the one thing I didn't expect was for her to just walk around an obstacle and keep going out of the ring when I tried her off leash. It wasn't easy to get her to come back either When Sarah is at the park or at home and having a good time her recall is fine, in fact if Collie is not with us (which was the case yesterday) she usually prefers to stick by my side. However if she's a bit hesitant about something or thinks I'm going to get her to do something she doesn't want to do then I have issues getting her to come back to me, treats and all. As with all dogs agility requires a fair bit of training and Sarah will take a bit longer just through her lack of confidence but I know once that happens she'll love it because she loves running and she loves running by my side. So how do I get her confidence levels up while maintaining control over her, agility can be pretty restrictive with a leash on.

awesome news for a Monday morning. Congrats SLF and Reba hopefully everything goes well from here

Here's my week 5, Sleepy Sarah, slightly inspired by kirislin's kitty shot :) 5/52

As I'm sure most people are aware off lead dogs must be under effective voice control. As this dog was not being monitored by it's owners then how could it have been under effective voice control? Regardless of the fact that the dog returned to it's owners once they called him the owners were clearly not in control of anything prior to that. And Jules I'm sorry that you got knocked over by a dog as a kid (I'm sure you recovered quickly enough) but I for one would be furious if one of my grandparents got knocked over and ended up in hospital because of someone's wayward dog at a public beach. BoxerB - my dogs get a bit of freedom at the park as well but I keep an eye on them and call them back if they start becoming a nuisance or get close to the (mostly empty) car park. I'm not sure why that wouldn't have been warranted in this case. Terri, next time I would call the council and say there's a stray dog running around the carpark. If the owners are not making themselves known then what other assumption could be made

:laugh: they are always spontaneous. I rarely plan a shot, I'm very much a happy snapper with a brilliant camera, but at least I realise my limitations. I'm forever getting people asking me to take photos for them because they think I'm a photographer, and I always refuse. you do though have a great eye for knowing a great moment to take some pics.

Congrats Bandit!! Looks like a great family for him, I'm glad all the hard work you put in finally paid off

Kirislin do you by any chance live with a camera around your neck? Your photos always look so spontaneous :)

OMG so cute :D Dogs just continue to amaze me with what they are capable of doing (and tolerating), it would take a lot of trust for him to do that

I will be on my way to the Cook Islands on my honeymoon but thanks for asking :D

Hopefully there's some confusion here, breed standard says male Mals should be around 85 pounds (39 kgs). So 45kgs at 8 months, he's already a very big boy

I don't really know about the walking issue, from what I've read in here 8 months is getting into the rude teenager stage which can make things more difficult. Although while you're working on that you probably want to make sure he's still getting plenty of exercise. Maybe take him down to the park and have him on a long line so you can maintain control and keep him away from the birdies and small dogs. This will also help with recall training. Swimming can also be a good way of wearing out your dog in a smaller area while maintaining control And to try and reduce the backyard destruction trick training and obedience training can help wear him out mentally

So Cute :D I can't get over those paws! she's going to be a very big puppy and looks so pretty in black I also can't imagine a puppy that big, mine are adults at 10 and 13kgs :p

It's probably not worth making any long term decisions while your girl is still in recovery. I would suggest keep doing what you are doing, try and keep them separated and spend time with both of them. A new home and recovering from surgery is a lot to cope with without the added stress of a pushy puppy, once she's better settled she'll hopefully be able to cope with pushy puppy a bit better. When we first got Sarah Collie would get in her face and want to play a lot so she was giving out plenty of warning growls and we would intervene if he didn't listen. After awhile the novelty wore off and now they are two peas in a pod - Collie's energy is sometimes too much for Sarah so we just keep an eye on them when playing and usually a Sarah growl at Collie is followed by a people growl at Collie because he still doesn't always listen to her

feeling for you guys in SA. One hot day I can cope with but it's when it stays that way for a week and doesn't cool down enough at night is when me and the dogs really suffer (OH could care less :p) Sarah is getting a clipping tonight, she's a bit too wooly at the moment so hopefully that will help as we are getting more hotter days now Obedience is back this weekend as well with a lovely 39 degrees, luckily our class is at 8.30AM and if it's not too hot I might stick around for beginners agility

Typical story at the park over the weekend. A woman was walking around the park with a big GSD puppy (probably 9 - 12 months), once he saw Collie and Sarah he proceeded to run across the entire park to them and proceeded sniff and stand-over our dogs and generally make a nuisance of himself. Owner called and called and couldn't get her GSD to come back so she ended up having to come over to try and physically move him away and didn't do a very good job with that either. OH made a comment to her that it's extremely rude to allow your dog to run up to two completely strange dogs, she started to say 'But it's an off lead park' so I had to interrupt and let her know that there were still rules and regulations around that and she clearly didn't have verbal control over her dog. After she left with the dog he ended up coming back again a couple of times and she had to run away to get him to follow her :p. Was very annoying as I was trying to get some nice pictures of the dogs and we kept having to wait until she had control over her dog to keep taking photos.

Week 4/52 I tried playing around with a few action shots with my camera's sport setting but the photos tend to come out a bit grainy and not quite focused. I think it might be a bit passed it's abilities so I'll focus on stiller shots for the moment me thinks.

My Parents dog is a Kelpie cross huntaway. He just looks like a big kelpie though, not sure how much huntaway he's got in him, gorgeous dog though :)

I've not had to transport a puppy before but to me driving seems to be the safer bet. There are a lot of unknowns with flying and you have to trust that the airport employees will do the right thing. The travel time doesn't seem to be overly different with flying and driving when you factor in all the waiting around before and after the flight. If driving was an option for me I'd probably take it but then I also enjoy a good road trip. Plus extra bonding time with the puppy

Lol, not today with Sarah but I imagine I'll be getting lots of licks tomorrow when I take Collie. Sarah just kept jumping back when I was doing jumping jacks.

Interesting. Do you know if this dog was temp tested thoroughly and if so what were the results. Also why wasn't a house check done on the initial adoptee, or at least have the dog taken to the house for a meet and greet prior to a formal adoption Considering the number of dogs that end up in the pound it's very clear that people lie about their circumstances and they don't expect their cute dog to then turn into a destructive monster. Surely the rescue organisation is responsible for making sure that they match their dogs with the best possible owner using every resource available and not just one person's story