bristley

Hi, We live on the north side of Brisbane and I was wondering if anyone could recommend a good trainer who could do a session or two - with us and our 6 year old twin girls - and our new 8 1/2 week old dalmatian puppy. One of the girls is quite nervous around our puppy - my partner says he can remember having similar responses to dogs when he was a child. The other twin is doing very well and is helping Emma the puppy calm down if she gets too excited. Emma is not the problem - she's doing everything we can expect and will start puppy school and then do obedience etc. but having read around this and other forums I think that having a good trainer come and give the girls some training on how to act around a puppy will make one twin feel much more confident and help Emma the puppy by having two well trained 6 year olds to play with. thanks Pam

Thank you everyone - your comments are very reassuring. I interrupted a dog owner and his two nicely behaved labradors who I see on my morning walk and asked his opinion of the nearby dog park and he was very reassuring as well. And I should have 10 months to get my jogging up to speed - 12 months till running with dog applies to dalmatians? We knew about the kidney stones issues - but I've now done a bit more reading about it - my new hobby is reading fascinating pages like " The Dalmatian Club of America - FIFTEEN YEARS' DATA OF ALMOST 3,000 DALMATIAN URINARY STONES" http://www.thedca.org/stonecharts.html ). I also have been reading all the reports on http://www.dalmatianwelfare.co.uk/ from their rescue dogs - lots of stories about individual dalmatians and why they've become rescue dogs and how they've responded to their new owners and what there owners have done to train them ). Thank you for being so kind to a newbie :-)

Thanks Everyone. That's very reassuring - and such kind answers. (Puts cars on list of things not to let dog pee on). The breeder says that her male is not a problem so I'm hoping temperament will be on my side. I did ask the breeder about dog parks but she has a large property and doesn't like dog parks because of risk - which I understand. In our case, we are on a normal suburban block and there is this nice large fenced dog park really close - and it's empty in the mornings when I go by after dropping the kids at school. We know some people who go there and from what I've seen the dogs there seem to be generally under control and having fun - and a larger open area to play in might help a dalmatian shake the fidgets out - as I'm unable to provide it with a stage coach or horse drawn fire engine to run after. I will talk to her more about male management on Saturday when we go to visit the puppies. (ooh puppies).

Hi, we've enquired about getting a dalmatian puppy with a breeder. The breeder recommends/requires/would really like the male puppy not to be desexed until 18 months. I grew up with desexed male dogs (from the rspca) - what is the etiquette for walking an entire dog. I've done some searches - I've found a lot of threads saying that people with intact dogs need to be responsible but I haven't found anything with full details as to what that entails. We've got 6 foot fences - so for the purposes of this discussion lets pretend/agree that the dog is not getting out of the yard because it smells an enticing female. Do I not take it to dog parks once it gets to about 8 months? Do I only take it to dog parks when they are empty - the one around the corner from us is empty in the mornings when I walk by for example. Do I not let it off leash at the beach if there are any other dogs around - just in case his recall (or is that my recall) is not perfect? The only large fenced off-leash area near us is the dog park and I've been reading about how much activity a dalmatian needs - and looking to it :-) Is there anything else - etiquette wise I should know? thanks Bristley