karen15

the leg they collapse on is the good one, its taking all the weight. The leg they move through quickly is the sore one.

PK I feed beef neck bones. The cocker is a fatty so I've changed from the meaty ones at Woolies to the sparser ones from the butcher (which are also cheaper, which is a happy coincidence). They get them two or three times a week and chew on the bones for days. The westie has a sensitive tum. Beef mince is too fatty for him so they get chicken and turkey mince (human grade from woolies). I think wings would be too fatty for him too, not that I've fed them.

Wouldn't hobbles be easier and less likely to kill the dog? Not sure if they make dog hobbles, but I would think a set of spider hobbles would probably stop a jumper........ Unlike a horse, dogs don't really have fetlocks, so attaching to legs could be problematic I suppose

thinking of mammals, I can't think of any with the angle of the back and hock positioning of the modern GSD. A giraffe has the angle, but their hinds are under them like a horse, not out behind. Same for elephant, bison etc. Hocks are always under quarters. I agree with comments above re movement. Quadruped mammals have similar footfall patterns to my knowledge. Walk, trot, canter. Some eg horses are gaited and can have additional gaits such as pace and tolt. some reading on gaits in mammals http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fneur.2015.00017/full

agree with scottsmum. If this is a problem, imagine the dramas with a real issue..... that said, I despise barking dogs, so could understand why the neighbour might be hesitant to be subjected to that again. I bought a unit where we're allowed to have pets. Never applied through BC. To quote my neighbour - it's easier to ask forgiveness than ask permission. He was on BC at the time, so pets just moved in. We've got 17 units in the complex and I'd guess maybe 12 dogs. You never hear any of them. My initial pets have died, and I've got 2 new dogs. Not an issue. I make sure I talk to my neighbours to check the dogs aren't annoying. I think if you're on good terms with your direct neighbours then you're pretty set. I let my neighbour know if her greyhounds have been unusually upset when I'm home. Not as a complaint, but out of concern as being noisy is out of character for them.

ps your girl is beautiful!

My westie had a double whammy canine for a while. The baby tooth came out when it was ready.

I see quite a few cocker spaniels when I'm driving of a morning. At park there's a lot of purebreds and fewer crosses. We go to baby park, so don't run around with the big breeds. I got the strangest comment one morning when I was getting the dogs out of the car. A guy walking past looked at them and said "that's a lot of money there". I was a bit dumbfounded to be honest. Who makes that sort of comment? I bought the westie and the cocker was free. Comparative to other breeds they aren't expensive.

my staffy was taught that a hand in a position similar to a stop signal directed at your feet, meant not to jump. That would be easy to teach your puppy and easy for your two year old to do. You could also use your leave it command when the pup gets a bit exuberant. Leave it applies to everything, so you'd be training pup expected behaviour with the toddler as well as reinforcing your leave it training.

It's so hard for the general public, like me, to find good breeders. I buy a dog once every 15 years, so I'm not really in touch with people between purchases. This time around I wanted something smaller. I looked at lots of breeds and whittled it down to a choice between a couple, Frenchies being one. They got ruled out because I was worried about how they'd handle the heat. But if I'd decided to buy one, I would have looked up local registered breeders. Being registered is one of the things promoted to help you get a healthy dog. There's supposed to be standards. Going by Asals post, it seems the registration body is letting people down. If registered breeders can happily breed dogs that have those sorts of health problems as common place, then that's a concern. I knew from the moment I got my pup, a westie, home that he was exactly what I wanted. His poor breeder has been inundated with updates :D

I've just been reminded of another westie foible - he won't eat unless I eat. Breakfast he is a little better, but I generally have to eat next to him. Tonight for example, the dogs were fed at 7. I started making a small snack at 8.30 and only then did the westie eat his dinner. It took me a while to work out the correlation between me eating and him eating. He sometimes has a tiny pick when the dish is first put down, but leaves the majority until I eat.

as a pup my westie had things he didn't like so I turned them into a game eg rolling over and getting feet handled was scary so every morning we play on the bed and he ends up flipped, tickled and feet handled. These days if he doesn't get flipped early enough, he runs around my feet and rolls himself over to instigate his tummy rubs LOL Wasn't keen on being brushed either he would run off when the brush came out. So brush stayed out and whenever he jumped on the couch he'd get a quick no fuss brush, then a cuddle. Now he likes being groomed. If I remember correctly, he wasn't over keen on getting picked up either. So I'd warn him before picking him up with either a 1, 2, 3 up or uppy puppy. Now we go 1 2 3 and he puts in a bounce on the 3 to get lifted pick up for short time and put down before he squirmed, so he knew he wasn't going to be held onto for ages.

what started out as a game when he was a puppy, to get him ok with being rolled over and having his feet handled, has become a must occur event every morning. If I don't flip him onto to the doona quick enough, he walks around my feet and up the other side and assumes tickle position LOL

when my westie was a pup he went through a stage of running around with his bed on his head LOL usually he'd also have a teddy in his mouth and be using the teddy to roll a tennis ball :D I have a video of him after he'd flipped the bed on his head, standing up and going for a drink. Bumped into a few things on the way. he's grown out of that now. now he's like a little dragon and puts all his precious things either under the couch, where the cocker can't fit, or under his hammock bed outside. I moved the hammock one day to find a mound of bones under there. I had wondered where they were disappearing to!

call me judgemental but I'm surprised you are looking at a minimum 9 week holiday when you were saying your dog is so sore in the HD thread but you don't want to leave him with someone to keep a constant eye on him and his discomfort levels. Perhaps you could shorten your trip and use the money saved to pay for someone to look after him while you are away.

on that scale she was an 8 and would now be a 5 - what they had noted is what I look for. My concern with her hair is I can't see the small changes early enough. I find handling daily for cuddles etc doesn't give the same eyeball assessment you get with sleek dogs. I probably just have to learn a new way to assess - be it more targeted assessment in morning bed cuddles or changing my "normal" from a sleek coated breed with a better defined waist to accepting a waist dip as the new desirable.

sounds like she growls when you are leaning / towering over her - does that sound right?

I've had the cocker spaniel for 18 months now and she has trimmed up nicely at last. She's lost the fat pad at the base of her tail and now is shapely, not brick like. I don't want her to podge up again, but need to increase her intake to maintain weight. I'm used to visual assessment when I had the staffy. It was easy to maintain his weight between 19-21 kg just by monitoring his waist and making small adjustments as needed. However I'm finding the cocker harder for visual checking, due to hair distorting her outline, and I wouldn't want her much lighter based on a hands on assessment. As I tend to only think of these things at feed time, is there an easy way to assess? Currently I look for visible waist from above and a tummy tuck in a side view. The tummy tuck can be aided by grooming, so it isn't as reliable visually as it was for the staffy.

I lived next to two non stop barking mongrels and would have been happy to see them dead. I raised it politely at first with neighbours but dogs barked non stop, even when they were home. I hated those dogs with a passion. I moved to a unit where we can have pets. I think there's at least a dozen dogs here. You never hear them. I'm on a busy road but the lack of barking is utter bliss. whenever I've moved I've always made a point to say hello to the neighbours, introduce my dog and say please let me know if he barks. I always check if I see them out that the animals are ok and not being nuisances.

contract law. There has been an offer, acceptance and consideration. She is breaking the contract she entered into with you and you could pursue it further if you chose. You can't just break contracts because you feel like it.

Am I the only one who thought that the parent could have gotten the kid a proper paint brush in the time they spent videoing? Didn't think the child particularly smart as they failed to realise they needed to move the paints closer so the improvised brush could reach. These videos always put me on edge as the parents are not teaching their children the correct way to interact with animals. Its those same parents, when dog finally says enough is enough stop doing that, who put up the regrettable FTGH ads as dog has acted in a way that has frightened their child, and kid comes first, they can't risk it. I see so many child and dog videos that are, quite frankly, frightening. It's a reflection of todays society that people video instead of stepping in and doing something. They do it at accidents etc

Juice are you in Qld? I saw a beautiful bully very similar to Zelda at the vets, not so long back. Beautiful solid dog.

Totally agree with putting a person between rushing dog and your dog. Most dogs will think twice before going a person and I've found breaking their line of sight can be enough to stop the rush. However, once a dog gets on yours, holding the lead doesn't help your dog. Our attack was totally out if the blue. Dog jumped through hedge. Approached friendly, said hello. No problem until we went to continue on our way, then it nailed my dog without so much as a growl. Prior to that it was wagging its tail and being polite. On a main road I'd have to consider options, but if I'd been holding my dog's lead I wouldn't have been able to haul the mongrel off him. That took both hands and a lot of strength. Fortunately it had a collar on and I pretty much choked it till it stopped. I had to wait for the right time to do that though. It had my dog pinned to the ground while it was chomping his neck. After that, I don't let any dogs approach, regardless of how friendly they may seem.

At puppy school with my staffy, they said to drop the lead if your dog is attacked. Hardest thing I've ever done was to drop the lead and wait for an opportunity to haul a wolf hound off my dog. A smaller dog would have been really hurt. The staffy had a few superficial gouges but was otherwise ok. He got a terrible scare though. Luckily he was a happy friendly dog and got over it without becoming dog shy. Now I've got two smaller dogs I tend to be very defensive. If they get grabbed I doubt they'd come off as well, so I try not to let other dogs get that close.

What a little cutie pie :D