TigerJack

there's a good article in the current clean run magazine on how to make them yourself from Aluminium. No need to weld etc. Written by a couple of Aussies from NSW. I think I could even manage it if I wasn't so lazy

you don't need to buy a brand name 'pet loo' you can do it cheaply. I use the plastic tray out of a crate and put towels in it. Works fine, just wash towels each day. You can always stick pee pads in there if you prefer. I just got some new replacement plastic trays from Vebo pets on the weekend. They were $13.95 each! (PS: my pup likes to take her toys to the pet loo and play with them there too, not sure why.)

yep that's what my jar looks like. Think I got it from overseas though so local is easier

Don't know about Formalin, sounds a bit extreme. It gets used in embalming doesn't it? Try 'Mushers paste' comes in a jar and is for healing and protecting paws of dogs that run a lot on snow, ice, stony ground and rough surfaces. I have used it to help heal pads with friction burns on them and it did the job.

NinaHartland I am sorry about your boy. Similar happened just over 2 years ago to my boy Jack (ridgeback x Malinois.) In retrospect I know he had been getting pains for a few months and those were probably bleeds. He was fine, lively, eating well. A very lean dog (very much the Malinois physique) and he did flyball. A couple of times he just stopped dead in the race lane and looked back at me like I might be cross he didn't finish the run, jumping was hurting him and I knew something must really hurt as these were only 8 inch jumps and he was very tall. I could find nothing wrong, I was thinking shoulder injury, back, neck etc etc. Thing was, 5 minutes later he would be off for a gallop on the flat as if nothing was wrong. I think he had been having little bleeds for a while. One friday he wouldn't get out of bed and didn't want breakfast. I knew something was really wrong when he wouldn't eat. Watched him that day and by evening his tummy looked a little swollen. Off to the vet and he was very flat, pale gums etc. The vet tapped the swollen belly with a needle and there was frank blood in there. He'd haemorrhaged. Quick ultrasound showed the lump on the spleen. Operated Monday with the advice it might be just the spleen and nowhere else and he'll be fine. Or it might be everywhere and we don't wake him up. Jack was not woken up, it was everywhere and still bleeding. I didn't get the option to give him his last days at home and I hate that I wasn't there at the end. Given those options again I don't know what I would do. I have the unhappy memory of his worried face as I left him there at the vets for surgery. He must have wondered where I was. Apparently there is a benign form and a malignant form. Jack's was malignant so he had no chance. He had also had a big bleed so wasn't going to get a few months at home. If your boy has not had a massive bleed to make a decision urgent, I don't know that I'd operate again in the same situation. I'd let him have his time at home. Hateful disease. Its a nasty one. Hope your outcome is better than Jack's

A new house! after almost 13 years in the one place, the encroaching high rises were getting crowded. Final straw (after a previous lovely neighbour for 7 years) was the new renter in next door since Easter who started making calls about all sorts of rubbish to council and RSPCA etc etc. Made life a misery. RSPCA was annoyed she'd wasted their time but council sent a dog phobic idiot who eventually told me they would send me an order to reduce numbers. They don't care about NSW companion animal act, they think we should all only have 2. But don't worry...it will be easy. All you have to do is drop the rest off to the RSPCA or one of those places.... So, moving to the country to a shire with no dog limits and becoming a commuter. 4 weeks to go and can't wait. I actually am grateful to the lousy bitch next door now. Should have done it years ago.

My old Dane Sam was a rescue who came to me age 8. He had not long had a sarcoma removed from his foot. They didn't take enough in the surgery, they only shelled out the lump. As a result a few years later it grew back. Sam was over 10 by that stage and had numerous other inoperable cancers so I was not going to do anything about it as it didn't bother him. I had to change that plan when he was about 11 as the tumour grew so quickly that it outstripped its own blood supply and started to necrose. The open would was painful and was quickly going to get infected so he had to have surgery. The vet took the whole first toe (front foot) and big margins. He took a bit of a while to recover but was never bothered by the missing toe. He lasted till he was 14 years old and I eventually had to put him down as his multiple cancers were getting too much for him. He was never bothered by the toe sarcoma again though. If they operate, don't let them take just the lump, make sure they take big margins. If it means a whole foot I don't know if I would have done it to Sam, the toe was easy to get along without. good luck

yeah and 48 of them are mine! Sounds like a nice set up. Hope we don't freeze!

I figure it's a successful day when I can just call a dog by its correct name and gender. Now that I think about it I should really replace "good boy/girl" with "good dog" too yeah I've apparently started calling my kelpies by each other's names while trialling. They don't seem to mind too much. I use OK for all of them and they seem to know it only works if I say it. I was injured recently and got a friend to run one of my dogs. She said 'OK' and the dog looked over at me to see if she was allowed to move.

I'm coming to that regional at Glenreigh in a few weeks. Bit of a trip but it looked fun. Some information would be good if you don't mind. Like what are the camping arrangements at the grounds? How to find the grounds when I get there? Can we camp next to the rings or is it some distance and then I need another set of crates etc. Running 4 dogs this time, think its the most I've spent on entries for one trial and that includes nationals last year. Looking forward to it. Thought I'd see what it was like distance wise and facilities etc before deciding about going back for other trials scheduled there.

That's him :) yeah thats him but its Szmelter I think. Eddy made me and my friend some 2x2's last year. Didn't take very long and they are very well made. He will do any configuration you want.

I've done a few versions. I have used puppy fence panels. Bought the 3 foot high (8 panel) sets from Vebo. Got 2 sets and they are the kind with the long pins for hinges. Took those out and turned each panel sideways and cable tied them into pairs so each pair makes one v. You need ten V's for a set and this only gives you 8 V's so I added two pairs of Bunnings green wire frame garden arches that are 3 foot long each. They hook together at each end so make their own V. These are the nicest to run through, easiest to set up and make a nice clear run. However they weigh a tonne and are a pain to lug to the park. I have also done the more portable version with plastic garden trellis. You buy a roll for about $20 from Bunnings. I needed 3 rolls and made each section 1.5 metres. I think I could have done with maybe another 15 to 20cm as the channel is narrower than the puppy fences. You need a whole lot of plastic curtain rings to attach each end. This is fiddly but a whole lot lighter to carry round. A hint with this is when its new, store the sections flat, maybe with a weight on them so they lose the curl from the roll. Otherwise they are a bit too tightly curled to get to sit straight at the start. Whichever version you start with, you need to fade them out and I do that with the little 1 foot wide garden arches, also from Bunnings. Replace each V with one little arch, starting with the centre ones and gradually move them out till you can remove them all together. I have seen the single wire guides on clean run and would like to try them but I think I would still start with the fence or trellis version first.

I've been dealing with this problem myself with two kelpies. One is my masters dog who I got into agility with not knowing anything at all about foundation work so we succeed in spite of our techniques. She is dodgy on finishing weaves, especially if she is on my right or if a tunnel or something else fun is directly ahead of her. Weaves perfectly and more speedily at training, just not in trials. Her entries aren't as independent as I'd like. As I said we knew nothing about foundation stuff when we learned obstacles. I am a bit over her popping at the tenth pole in trials. My young novice boy can weave beautifully but he did pop a couple in trials and I obviously reacted in a way that has shut him down in weaves. He got super cautious and slow and kept looking at me. I think afraid of what reaction I might have. I decided I couldn't keep that behaviour going as it was counterproductive and just not fun. I decided to go back to basics and do weaves where they cannot fail. What I am doing is setting up the weaves with barriers on them (puppy fence panels) and running them at speed from all directions with me running around like a noisy loon. They can't fail to complete and when they do complete I jackpot the reward with about twenty pieces of food (very tiny) one after the other with me carrying on like a loon about how good they are. My aim is to increase the value for the weaves themselves. I don't think either of my dogs thought they were much fun before. I have added a couple of jumps and a tunnel at either end and now do them from all directions but always jackpot. After about 4 sessions of this, both dogs are frantic to go weave and are much faster. Older girl still needs a bit of support on entries when there are no barriers but young boy is screaming through much faster and is looking for the weaves better. I do think he sometimes didn't see them in a trial. So, 4 sessions with barriers on and last time took them off and did maybe 4 runs without and they still stayed in nicely. I still jackpotted. At my private lesson last night, my boy actually was looking for weaves when we were doing things on equipment close by. I have discovered it is still dependent on what I do while they run. My girl I need to shut up, the boy I need to keep on telling him to go go go etc. So they are still not entirely independent and maybe never will be. I think I was doing something different in trials to what I was doing in training so I have to try and relax and not seem anxious about it. I think I will just keep doing this barrier, can't fail thing with jackpots for a few more sessions then make sure I sound like we are having a party every time they complete weaves in trial. Guess we'll see this weekend if they work in trial or not.

Flyball website here My link Four Canberra (or close to) clubs. CDC, Belconnen, Tuggeranong and K9 Krusaders (who are Queanbeyan based.) ACT Companion Dog Club (Canberra X-Factor Flyball Team) Phone: (02) 6295 7764 (from 10am-1pm) PO Box 4048 Kingston ACT 2604 Website address: Website http://xfactorflyball.blogspot.com/ Belconnen Dog Obedience Club Phone: (02) 6241 7999 Flemington Road Mitchell ACT 2911 Tuggeranong Dog Training Club Amanda Bateup Mobile: 0402 574 809 Email: [email protected] Website address: Website K-9 Krusaders Verdelle Mobile: 0412 701 753 Email: [email protected]

For your dogs - I think every 2nd week is fine. I currently have two young kelpies in training for Flyball so i take a different one each week. Better a good lesson once a fortnight with a decent amount of attention than just a few minutes going each week. As to travel time, its 1.5 hours for me to go from work, to home, grab dog and then get to training. I also do another 1.5 hour run once a week to go to agility training. My dogs don't seem to mind all the time in the car.

Only just seen this! That was my Jack. He was a ridgeback cross Malinois who was at the time the tallest dog running in Australia. Dudley the Briard with Norwest would be the biggest now I think. I was very lucky when I started that nobody said to me that big dogs couldn't do flyball as we just went ahead and trained him. Adapted a few things for his size (like giant sized turning board first up) but got his turn perfected then transferred it onto the normal curl box, he just adapted to the smaller size fine as he had developed the muscle memory for it, lots of repeats. In those days everyone used a curl box which I think had a smaller landing area than the current flat fronted boxes. He had a great turn and it was only after I started competing that people kept telling me big dogs couldn't do turns. I would say nothing, just go into the ring and show them his great style of turn. He was one of the softest at hitting the box dogs in our club according to the boxloaders. He rarely ran at full height as we always had littler height dogs in those days. I will say he ran with a much better jumping style if I put him over height. Its not always worth going as low as possible. Hope you can go ahead and sort out your club / team. Loads of advice available and I've got a nice curl box for sale going cheap!! PS, for perspective, Jack weighed in at 32 kilos so he was twice the weight of the Kelpie I currently run. Still not the heaviest dog out there doing flyball, he was quite a skinny boy, just very tall. I think Dudley is up in the 50 kilo range.

Only just seen this! That was my Jack. He was a ridgeback cross Malinois who was at the time the tallest dog running in Australia. Dudley the Briard with Norwest would be the biggest now I think. I was very lucky when I started that nobody said to me that big dogs couldn't do flyball as we just went ahead and trained him. Adapted a few things for his size (like giant sized turning board first up) but got his turn perfected then transferred it onto the normal curl box, he just adapted to the smaller size fine as he had developed the muscle memory for it, lots of repeats. In those days everyone used a curl box which I think had a smaller landing area than the current flat fronted boxes. He had a great turn and it was only after I started competing that people kept telling me big dogs couldn't do turns. I would say nothing, just go into the ring and show them his great style of turn. He was one of the softest at hitting the box dogs in our club according to the boxloaders. He rarely ran at full height as we always had littler height dogs in those days. I will say he ran with a much better jumping style if I put him over height. Its not always worth going as low as possible. Hope you can go ahead and sort out your club / team. Loads of advice available and I've got a nice curl box for sale going cheap!!

I'm getting a mini dogwalk made at the moment. Sides and the top are 1.5m each, 60cm tall. $500 Good for me as I could not fit a full size one in the back yard plus I can still teach contacts properly.

Keep trying with Annabel. She's often away at shows etc so might not have seen your message yet. I've bought lots of coats from her, many custom made and she's always been very helpful and quick once we sort out what I want.

I second the cot mattresses. I wrap them in plastic, get a set of cot mattress sheets and put the flat sheet on the bottom and the fitted one on the top. Keeps it all cleaner. Then just add a blanket or similar. You can usually get plenty of free cot mattresses on freecycle.

My whippets have Wolf's Den coats. Can recommend them - warm & hardwearing. Plus, with the zip on the back, my girl can't undress herself just because she feels like it. I have dozens of coats from Wolf's Den too. All sized dogs here. Annabel has custom made a fair few of them to fit my odd shaped dogs and they don't cost any more when she does that. Pretty quick service too.

ADAC is not running anymore though! So now NSW just has ADAA and ANKC Bummer! When did that happen? I hadn't run ADAC for a while, so I am out of the loop with them! the couple who run adac aren't doing it anymore. All 2nd hand info but apparently the fellow got a new job and its too hard for her to run it on her own. I had been waiting for this year's calendar and it never showed up and when I mentioned it to a friend they told me. Just didn't come back this year.

ADAC is not running anymore though! So now NSW just has ADAA and ANKC

Thought you'd have got some answers by now. Don't know how recent my knowledge will be. I grew up there but these days I only visit to see family so don't really frequent dog park areas as home is 5 acres. I am told there is now a fenced dog off leash area in Victoria Park (the block south of the hospital.) There is a dog obedience club as well and they do obedience and agility trials so there must at least be that sort of training. What area are you looking at houses?

6 is not too late. My little Silky Terrier girl was 7 when she started agility. Came along to a training weekend with my kelpie and gave her a run on the course and she did everything except weave. Started actually training her and she is still running. Turns ten next month and has made it into masters. I reckon it keeps her feeling young