dididog

Okay this is the first one not taken with my phone. I love how squishy Didi looks in this one! 4/52

Thanks! Posting from photobucket made the portrait go a bit gross and blurry, need to work out how to resize things

Woops! Got a bit behind... have had some cruddy weather recently plus I still don't have a memory card so there's not much point taking the camera out with me if I can only take 20 shots using the internal memory so still phone shots for now.... 2/52 3/52

Hi, I live in inner North Melbourne too. My vet advised me that I couldn't go out (park, beach etc) until 10 days post 3rd vaccine. I thought it was the second too, seems excessive. Yep mine wanted me to keep her in until after the 3rd... and said I shouldn't even let her play with my friends puppy who was the same age with same vaccination status in one of our yards! You'd have to be pretty unlucky to pick something up and you could just as easily walk diseases into your home on the bottom of your shoes. The socialisation benefits far outweigh the very small risk and I wouldn't hesitate to start letting puppy walk on the ground a bit after the second vac. I personally waited till after the 3rd vac to start taking her to parks just because that's really where risk is highest and lots of unknown dogs (our local park is really popular) but she still got to be exposed to lots of things just by walking around our neighbourhood on the pavement.

I am glad your dog owning dreams came true! I would probably wait till after his second shot to let him walk on the ground. I live in inner city Melbourne in a really low risk area too but I just wanted to be on the safe side with mine. I didn't get her till 10wks though which was when she got her second vac so I only had to wait a week... which was good because she weighed 11kg at the time so couldn't be carried very far! You can still socialise him with people while being carried and get him used to things you'll encounter on walks like trams and bikes going past.

While I have loved Didi since I brought home in that I would have been devastated if anything happened to her and enjoyed her company and she responded with general puppyish affection, it took a while to 'bond' with her. It probably wasn't till she hit 10/11mths after some behavioural problems popped up and we spent a lot of time working on them and I became so much more in tune with her that we begun to really click. She trusts me a lot and is completely comfortable with me doing anything with her and I can read her like a book. While she likes my whole family I think she only 'loves' my Dad and I. With my Dad she flat out adores him and is very affectionate with him and demanding of his attention and appears to consider him as her favourite. With me however I feel like I'm her 'person' in that I'm the only one she listens to properly and she keeps an eye on me and is protective of me. She sleeps wrapped up with me every night and when I go out she is always waiting on my bed when I return, I just have to smile at her to get a tail thump out of her etc. so I definitely think there's some kind of 'love' there. But it definitely took a lot longer to reach that sort of dog-owner bond than I anticipated... I had the kind of unrealistic notion that the moment I met her I would know she was the one and she'd feel the same but it really took a while to go from 'I love having a dog' to 'I love having THIS dog' if that makes sense :laugh:

Haha SG, unfortunately I am literally the worst decision maker in the world so nothing to aspire to here!

I agree with Brandiandwe and definitely would suggest taking a hard think about it at your age, especially if your parents aren't huge dog people. I got my first puppy in the summer holidays between finishing year 12 and starting uni and while I managed quite well and my dog has an awesome life, I also still live at home and rely on my parent's support for her a lot. My biggest problem is moving out, I have faced the fact I will probably have to wait until I have finished uni (4 more years) and am working full time before I can afford to move out and support my dog. I won't be able to travel the world like most of my friends have. I can't go on uni camps or go on exchange without putting a lot of unfair strain on my parents. During my last end of semester assignments and exams I also at the same time came down with glandular fever and for that whole month I barely had time for my dog and relied on my Dad to walk her and am just lucky she isn't much of a handful. Right before the start of summer holidays my dog got an ear infection and I had to drop a fair bit of money that I would've enjoyed spending going out and buying clothes on her treatment and most money I have goes back to the dog. The fun social life I should be having as a student does not really exist, my free time is mostly spent with the dog. You get the point, the list of restrictions and complications goes on and I definitely would not have been able to deal with her initial puppiness while doing year 12. But despite all of those cons (with the exception of travelling) I wouldn't trade anything and don't regret getting her. However I only feel that way because I am quite introverted so spending all my time with the dog suits me, she is a very easy dog to live with and copes with me being too busy for her sometimes AND my parents are wonderful about picking up the slack sometimes and I know if it ever came down to it they would look after her if I could not. If you are dedicated enough I don't think your age should be a problem though, as I see it there is no 'ideal' time to get a dog. Dog ownership still complicates matters whether you're a student, working full time professional, have children or are retired and is much more about your individual circumstances.

Haha! Too bad she still hasn't worked out how to properly use them yet :)

Baby poopy pants Big poopy pants

I think I will attempt this, I've been meaning to use my camera more... can't promise anything special though, or a particular theme (probably just lots of Didi photos). Week 1, Didi watching the planes go over in the backyard.

Awh that belly is just asking for a tickle! Happy birthday Poppy :)

Thanks everybody, I like to think she grew up into a pretty lovely looking dog! (except for those ears...) We had a relatively tame day, I got home at 4.30 am so we spent most of the day cuddling in bed but then I went and bought her a huge new bed and some toys for christmas and polished the day off with a romp in the park and some training after dinner :) I am really glad to have had such a great dog as my first and am pretty excited about the next year or so where we will hopefully be dipping our toes into the dog world and doing some trialing... maybe

It's been 1 year now since I brought home my first little ball of fur. After wanting a dog all my life Didi was originally meant to be a male Soft-Coated Wheaten Terrier :laugh: but I ended up with an XL mystery mutt instead who has somehow ended up suiting me and my family perfectly. She's the best thing in my life and has confirmed that I will always want to share my life with dogs :) Little baby a year ago on her first day home And my little baby now

That's great Jemmy :) any progress is good progress and the small wins all add up eventually! We had our xmas breakup at obedience today and Didi was a gem, lots of dogs, lots of people being loud and children running around and lots of pats and took it all in her stride with a wagging tail (except santa, didn't want to go near him!). We were sitting on a bench near the grounds to take a break and some people walked past and said how pretty she was. I got off the bench just in case Didi got nervous and we had to move away from them but instead Didi walked right up in between them for pats and was so nice and affectionate. Obviously this doesn't mean she now likes being patted by strangers but it was great to have a nice experience with nice people and to know that she is confident enough to do that in some situations. It felt really weird to ask if they wanted to say hello when normally I'm asking them to leave us alone!

Yeah, there's a fair few no's on your list MRB! I think Frosty would probably enjoy xmas more at your house, maybe get up early for a big walk on the beach and leave her with a special deconstructed christmas lunch left around the house to keep her occupied. You could always leave early/arrive later so she's not alone for too long if you're worried about that :) I mean the checklist is a probably a bit overboard and more for making sure I don't put us in a position to fail and reverse our training after I took Didi with us to get ice cream once not long into our reactivity progress and we had one of our worst encounters. Right then I realised that her being with me was NOT worth our training being ruined so now any outing or a change up in walking routes requires me to think it over and work out if it's a good idea. We're both so much happier for it because we get to enjoy our time together and it's taken a lot of the stress I was having about Didi and her issues away.

I used to take Didi everywhere with me. Friend's houses, cafes/restaurants, the city, the chiropractor even and while it was fun as soon as she started becoming intolerant of people in her space it became necessary to reassess her coming everywhere. So now I have a bit of a flow chart of 'when to take the dog'. First step is, is it necessary? Does the dog have to come with me to this thing/am I not able to leave her at home? If the answer is no, it's not necessary I go to the next step of will she enjoy herself? Is she likely to be stressed/scared by something? Will she be really bored or expected to behave at a level unreasonably expected of her? Will she get too hot/be completely exhausted but still need to keep going? Will she be in unreasonable danger? If the answer is yes she will enjoy herself I go to the next step. If she will not enjoy herself and it's not necessary, that's where the decision making process ends, she doesn't come. If she will enjoy herself the next step is will I enjoy myself? Will I be really limited in where she can come/what she can do? Will I be overly distracted or constantly needing to avoid things? Will I be getting into arguments with other people about her being with me? Will she be unlikely to behave and therefore make me frustrated at her? There is no point taking her out with me if it's not necessary if I will spend the whole time wishing she weren't there. For instance I'd like to go to the Dogs Victoria day out for dogs on the weekend but I know it is likely Didi will be overly excited and high strung and I don't want to be attached to 45kg of crazy all day. If however it is necessary that she come with me despite the answer being no to will she enjoy herself and will I enjoy myself then I look at how to manage the situation best I can, like you have with the crate at your cousin's house in the country. In doing this, nearly every time I take the dog out we have a good time and there are very few instances where she gets to rehearse her reactivity :)

It's weird, Didi will swim out to sea at the beach, run into swimming pools and scale rocky river banks ignoring my pleas after I'd just bathed her all in the name of getting wet and having a splash. The clamshell? Nope. Not going to happen. Flat out refuses and looks even a bit scared of it so it just sits dejectedly in the corner for the time being.

No I get what you're saying SG and in some instances when I'm 99% sure she'll do fine I give her freedom eg. walking past people who aren't trying to pat her at a shopping strip without veering onto the road to avoid them and reward her for choosing to walk past without a fuss. This is a pretty good improvement for her but there's certainly only a few contexts where I trust her to make her own decisions and in others if given the chance she will choose to react. I guess because we've seen some improvements I might've gotten a little too slack in the scenarios where she still can't make her own decisions and be appropriate so I will have to readdress those... but everything is slowly getting better and our current situation is pretty manageable/she still gets to do most normal dog things so I don't see it as much of a burden anymore.

Good on you Better Late for taking on a dog in need, hopefully you will be able to work through her issues, this thread is a great source of info and support. Though if she is truly reactive and you don't have much experience with reactivity, it'd be a good idea to get a behaviourist on board sooner rather than later as the less mistakes and bad behaviour she can practice, the easier progress will be :) Jemmy- thanks for asking :) Didi's a funny one. She doesn't like the vet, an incident at our old one was pretty much the starting point of her intense dislike of being approached and touched so I didn't go in there with very high expectations! She was fine with pats and stuff but as soon as she could sense the vet wanted to do more than pats she got shitty with the vet. We put a muzzle on her but she was not going to stay still enough for an ear exam so had to be sedated. Funny thing was she was completely fine having the vet lead her out the back (she normally gets upset when a stranger takes her lead) and apparently was quite a sweety, sniffing them and wagging her tail and fine for pats after sedation. The sedation wasn't zapping all the fight out of her though because she still did her usually grumpy get away from my car routine when someone was standing next to our as we backed out so if she really wanted to she could've continued being angry at the vet. I think a lot of her reactivity stems from needing to protect me, she's still fearful of things but I think the thing that makes her react is the feeling that she has to protect me from the scary thing. I wasn't anxious in the vet so I don't think I was transferring anything, just weird that as soon as I left she was pretty much fine. I think we need to really get back into BAT and more intensely so that she trusts my ability to handle the situation more. siiiigh. Our new vet is connected to the pet store that Didi did puppy school at and where we weigh her every few weeks, she loves it there and loves the staff so I think we will go in there a lot more just for hanging out and doing some tricks, maybe getting vet/receptionist to come into the store part to give her treats and stuff when she's ready. She is getting so much more confidence at our new obedience school, it's great to see how happy and relaxed she is, everyone says she has such a nice temperament and didn't believe me when we first joined and I said she needed space :laugh: We have a our Christmas party break up next weekend with silly games and stuff to do so hopefully that will cheer her up. eta. great that your reactivity classes are going well and that Luna's benefitting, confidence for both you and your dog seems to be the most helpful thing with working through reactivity. I'm so unflappable now and being able to keep a cool head means we can navigate through tricky situations so much smoother!

Big Daz (cool name btw) do you want a medal or something? Dog owner of the year award? Being inside 24/7 does not equate to best quality of life (which the poor mop across the road from me can attest to).

The otherside.

Kirislin your collars are gorgeous!!! Not really bling either but I hoped Didi wearing this bandana would stop everyone thinking she's a boy... didn't work though! Should've bought a pink one. It's reversible though which is pretty neat :)

Hmm tigger dogs are all very well and good but there's no going past a good half dog/half demon mutant! Seriously don't know whether to be amused or terrified of this unfortunate photo...

It's at least 3 years off but my main candidates atm are: -cocker spaniel -fieldie -pointer -boxer -std poodle Will start going to shows and talking to people next year to hopefully narrow it down a bit more but all of those breeds totally make my heart flutter and would all suit me and what I want. Didi is a laid back girl when it comes to other breeds which makes it harder to choose. Gets totally into smackdowns with boxers but equally good being gentle and restrained with a cocker pup! My 'one day' wishlist is a bit crazier with diversity though...