Willem

...the 'big pharma' will complain heavily once the licenses will run out and other manufacturers will offer it for a fraction of the price...and the bigger the margin, the earlier this will happen... it is not what I call a 'sustainable business strategy' as it just asks for cheaper competition...as the drug (afoxolaner) is well known and obviously pretty cheap to produce it will happen - hopefully - sooner than later....

Agreed. I don't really understand the point of the OP? are you saying the prices overall are unreasonable or that the difference between sizes is unreasonable- that smaller dogs should pay significantly less and the price increase between sizes more? ...it is like paying the same fuel cost for your car, no matter whether it is a 4WD using 18 l/100 km or a small city car using 5 l/100 km...would be unreasonable, or?

...the problem might be that the drug is not evenly distributed in the chew...

nah, I think it is just a linear dependency...how could they otherwise claim that it works for a 25 kg respectively 50 kg dog....plus they advice for dogs heavier than 50kg: ...'For dogs over 50kg administer the appropriate combination of whole chewables'...if your dog's weight is on the lower end you just heavily overdose, which they can afford as the drug itself is so cheap... ...some light reading here Discovery and mode of action of afoxolaner, a new isoxazoline parasiticide for dogs

I just did an internet search to check the cheapest supplier for Nexgard (I'm thinking about changing from Advantix to Nexgard)...and there are a few things that puzzles me: for most goods, foods etc. we pay for the amount / volume, and as the drug conc. in the dog depends on its weight, I would expect that the costs for a specific drug (e.g. Afoxolaner in Nexgard) would show some linear dependency according to the dog's weight. however, I can buy the red package (25.1-50kg, 3 pack) Nexgard for $40.97, the green package (10.1-25kg, 3 pack) would cost me $38.74 - hence the double amount of Afoxolaner cost not even $3 more! the '$3 (approx.) difference is also recognizable for the other packages (orange and blue); as it can be assumed that they earn $ with all their packages (no matter which color), the costs for Afoxolaner is obviously only a very small percentage of the sales price; weight, size and therefore transport and storage / handling costs should be nearly the same, independent from the color. based on the math I could buy a red package, cut every chew in 3 parts (for a 17 kg dog), hence would pay $13.66 for the treatment over a 3 month period....or I choose every month a chew from the green package and pay $38.74 for 3 month...what a rip-off!!! Edited: corrected the math regards the 3 month period...

...can you enlighten me what - in your opinion - is a 'humane dispatch of pests'?...do you rate fighting pests like common myna birds, mice and rats in your garden / home via dogs and cats as 'inhumane'?

I bought her a Kong (large), however she can't grab it properly and throw it around (if she could my windows would be in danger) hence she is not so interested in it; for her it is much more fun if she can throw things around and chase them while they are still in the air :D ...her favorite toy is therefore a big, black plastic flower pot (empty!)...if she runs through the garden her head inside the pot she looks like the incarnation of Ned Kelly :laugh: ... Edited:...looks like this giggle ball is 'grab-able' so she might be interested in it...but for $47 I can get a few flower pots too...

Cats shouldn't be allowed to roam (and kill) Double standards I cannot understand the double standard when people go mad about cats killing birds but don't mind one bit when they kill rats, mice & snakes. Aren't they wildlife & living creatures too ? I agree cats should not be allowed to roam & mine don't but its not for the birds sake as I believe birds reproduce faster & more than cats & most well fed domestic cats don't kill & eat a huge amount. Having said that my cats have outside enclosed runs & I took 2 dead bird out of one bed yesterday. Silly birds go in the runs & in one the sparrows nest in the top which I constantly block & they always return. They sit on a big tree branch in there & eat the cat biscuits out of the cats bowl. Suicidal tendencies My toy poodles also catch an odd bird but not frequently & I have to pen around one low tree they nest in every year, despite having plenty of high options. Back on track the OP said she was proud of the dogs recall not of it killing the bird. ...rats and mice and common myna bird are no native Australian animals and therefore not classified as wildlife. Killing them increases actually the chances for native animals / wildlife so IMO if a dog (or cat) kills those invasive species it is something that should be appreciated. The problems with cats if they a) are not neutered, and b) are roaming, is that they become also an invasive animal doing real damage to wildlife. (The same can be said about wild roaming dogs). Since we have our dog our backyard in nearly rat and mice and myna bird free (and I appreciate that I don't have to fight them with traps etc.); occasionally she also catches an unlucky pigeon or another native bird - IMO the benefits for us and the native animals outweighs the occasional 'casualties'. To avoid that she is chasing wildlife while walking her, we train the 'leave it - take it' game with the so called 'flirt pole'...and she is so far that she not only drops the rag on the other end of the 'flirt pole' after she caught it, but also interrupts the chase on 'leave it'.

...sounds very familiar ...you are not alone, this thread might give you some ideas My link...it is all about getting their focus, clicker training as Sheena mentioned is a very simple and easy game to train their focus... ...the good news :D : they are pretty smart and for all the time you spend to train and teach them you get heavily rewarded!

...some updates: 3 days ago it was time for the monthly interceptor (milbemcycin oxime plus praziquantel) chew; I collected the first poos, after administering the chew, in a bucket and mixed it with some compost from the worm farm (red wigglers / tiger worms) to see how the medicine effects the worms. The last time / chew I waited 1-2 days till putting the poo into the dedicated poo composter, however, later I found a few dead worms (which could also have been killed by heat as the poo composter was on a spot that got full afternoon sun. I moved the poo composter in the meanwhile to a better spot and the worm population recovered. This time I wanted to make sure that there won't be any negative impacts on the worm population due to the interceptor chew. So far the results: zilch, nothing...no impact at all...all the red wigglers are thriving...?...so it seems that the praziquantel has no impact at all on the red wigglers / tiger worms (might be different for other garden worms). I noticed that other dewormers contain - beside praziquantel - also pyrantel and oxantel embonate (e.g. Canex) so the results might not be valid for these chemicals. I also got a bag of eucalyptus bark (Bunnings and the like) and sprinkle it - from time to time - over the 'poo layer' in the poo composter - absorbs all the potential smell and gives a better 'look' :D .

@ Thistle the dog: this is a quote from your link: "Crowd GPS Crowd GPS is an alternative to traditional GPS and revolutionizes the possibilities of what can be tracked. Unlike traditional GPS, Crowd GPS uses the power of the existing cell phones all around us to help locate lost items. The technology works by having the TrackR device broadcast a unique ID over Bluetooth Low Energy when lost. Other users' phones can detect this wireless signal in the background (without the user being aware). When the signal is detected, the phone records the current GPS location, sends a message to the TrackR server, and the TrackR server will then update the item's last known location in its database. It's a way that TrackR is enabling you to automatically keep track of the location of all your items effortlessly..." ...that's pretty much what I thought this app will do...likely not a problem if your mobile plan includes 3-4 GB data, but for some plans without data allowances it could be a nasty surprise... @ sas: ...approx. 120 - 160 gr should be ok. for most breeds :D:) ...

...not sure whether we are on the same page; my understanding is that the network they advertise can only work if the users 'allow' the usage of their data for this purpose. The tracker it self is only Bluetooth, if a tracker (used for dogs, to find keys, bags, boxes...luggage etc. etc.) is in a distance where your mobile phone can pick it up via Bluetooth, the coordinates (of your phone) will be sent to the owner of the tracker (directly or via a server? - doesn't matter, both will consume data) using your data allowances. If you are in a busy city on a main street you might come close to 1,000 (? - not sure how popular this device really is) foreign trackers requesting data to be sent. I'm sure there are some settings to restrict this, but if everyone restricts the data usage the whole network won't work...

...make sure that it doesn't consume much of your data allowances...not sure about the details of the app, but if it sends automatically a message from your mobile phone every time you pass a tracker that is linked to this network it might come not cheap...

Then the dog could "phone home" :laugh: ...it will be tricky to teach him to take the call, but you could train him for a specific ring tone to come home :D

...first year is free respectively included in the $249, the following years cost you $49 per (they teamed up with vodaphone and optus), pretty steep considering that you can get an ALDI prepaid starter kit for $5 which does the same job...the $5 last the whole year as long as you don't use it for calls and only to locate the phone via a location finder app.

...specific?...IMO 'biased' is the better term here ...how many dogs never ever pull on the leash during their life time?...the 'Flexi or Retractable Lead' is specified as 'not legal', but listed under 'Other Collar' instead of listing it under 'Illegal and Non-Recommended Equipment' (saying this there is actually no real structure in how the titles are used in this paper)....interestingly these Flexi Leads are sold by Woolworth (one of those 'unscrupulous distributors') etc. etc....not sure whether they know that they sell illegal stuff? From a factual point of view this brochure is very very poor and sounds more like one of these political party pamphlets than an informative paper based on sound knowledge.

...I hope they get the message to every wolf, dingo and wild dog out there so they know what and what not to eat.....

...you could use your old mobile phone (as long as it has GPS), put it in a freezer bag, tie it to the collar and you got the same functionality (with the advantages that you are not bound to a specific mobile network provider and that you can use a prepaid sim card...ok., doesn't look so fancy...now use 'Location Finder' and you know where the phone / pet is...

...continuous tracking??? ...that's a little bit misleading as it requires mobile phone coverage - without Optus or Vodafone coverage no information about the location of the pod (and the pet attached to it). It doesn't work like a SPOT messenger or DeLorme inReach that informs you about the location independent from mobile phone coverage.

...ironically the paper recommends on the right upper corner exactly that type of harness the dog (and I) doesn't like as it is either too loose or sit in the pits of the front legs and restricts the dog from running freely.

geez ...that paper even classifies a Martingale collar as 'Non-Recommended Equipment' ....one of the big advantages of this collar type - IMO- is that the dog can wear it very loosely without rubbing and chafing, but when the dog goes nuts (in my case because she sees another dog and wants to sniff & play) it's tight and she can't slip out....much better - IMO - than wearing a normal flat collar much tighter all the time. Edit: ...just noticed that even the flat collar is 'Non-Recommended Equipment' ...oh dear...

Hate to butt in and answer a question not addressed to me, but this is a huge question and I think it's important to note just how complicated this can be and that there is theory that may help answer it. I wrote a whole paper on this kind of thing a few years back. The bottom line is it's critical to understand the emotional state of the animal. If you have a dog that is already in a negative state because they are conflicted or afraid or anxious (the vast majority of dogs with behaviour problems), adding another negative stimulus is way more risky than adding something the dog likes. It doesn't mean that it will go bad, but it does mean that there is a higher chance of it going bad. By that I mean the dog becomes more fearful, or associates their fear with other behaviours or stimuli, and there are bigger things afoot than behaviours and stimuli, because it does affect their mood. The more bad things that happen to a dog, the more they expect more bad things to happen to them. This has a big impact on what they are willing to try. For trainers, behaviours are our currency. The easier a dog will offer up new behaviours, the easier it is for us. So suppressing anything should be considered very carefully. Even using negative reinforcement should be considered very carefully, because you are still bringing more negative experiences to the dog in some cases. The bigger picture is that stacking positive experiences into your dog's court makes for a confident, outgoing dog that will happily try new things. It also tends to make for a dog that is more difficult to manage around reinforcers you can't control, but that has always seemed like a morally repugnant reason to keep a dog risk averse to me. Off-setting the positive experiences with negative experiences is not a big deal if it is rare and will lead to even more positive experiences, but you don't want to be making it a regular part of a dog's life or you risk it making an impression on all that good work you have been doing stacking positive experiences. ...I agree, when you look at mother nature's concept of learning it comprise positive experience,e.g. catch the prey and fill the tummy, and negative experience (pain!), e.g. trying to catch a porcupine. Obviously, the positive experience should always have a significant higher ratio than the negative experience, however the few negative experiences are as important as the positive ones.

...seems you are not familiar with the physics of heat transfer....if my dog is laying in the sun, her black top coat can be well above the 40 deg C as it absorbs the sun light...if she wouldn't have the double coat she would become heavily sunburned and she would more likely overheat as the heat energy will flow from higher temperature to lower temperature - the coat as an insulation prevents this...in the sun even the coat of a dead dog could have a higher temperature if there is enough radiation...following your theory bitumen in the sun is alive because it's hot, yeah?

:laugh: ...I love your wording.... wrt Bravecto: we had one dog in our agility class that just recovered from a paralysis tick bite; the owner didn't use any anti tick drug before, now the dog is on Bravecto, no recognizable side affects so far.

I better start saving some $$$ ...or may start with something cheaper My link she got her bronze banderole and graduated to the silver class, however before the official runs she had a run off with an other dog (so much about a stable 'stay' - must have been the full moon). The runs were pretty good so, not perfect...I would give a 8 out of 10 considering her age (nearly 11 month) :D . ...this agility stuff is somehow very addictive ... :)