kelpiecuddles

The only people will change thier views is if you keep going there and prove them wrong. Everyone's entitled to an accident and it sounds like she really is very well trained. If she's acting odd when you get to the shops next time find a grassy spot aand tell her to go again before you take her inside. She's a clever girl she'll show them all how good she is

Personally I've never used them but trying to think of things that don't go over the nose bridge so what about the sporn halters, anyone have any experience with them?

geez Caff be careful you don't want them to eat one when you're not looking, that could be disastrous :rolleyes:

Yippeeee! I sooo thought I had lost my beloved plate for ever Lablover Beau is a lab X boxer, he had a go at herding the two times I've been (tends to just want to sniff their bums tho ) You guys better count me in for that barbie and/or herding day(depending on dates), gotta get my plate back after all ;)

It was nice, but I think I may have accidentally donated my brand new plate to Dave

hey sheepdog, when I brought that choccy cake out that time and we all watched the video do you remember if I left a plate behind? I'm down to three plates laft out of my set and I can't for the life of me work out where the other one's gone

If he loves raw foods do a search n this forum for BARF (Bones And Raw Food diet) Since he's not keen on the dry food this is probably the best option for you.

I agree entirely Erny, I have trained a number of dogs and have been able to train all without resorting to a head collar (martingale at the most severe) however Beau was large, stubborn and not long after we got him I discovered I was pregnant and it was important that we controlled the initial problem behaviour quickly as I wasn't able to reprimand him on the choker as we had been up until then. Beau is quite happy to wear the head collar which probably made the difference in our case.

K9 the reason I say almost is that we have not completed the process of taking it off all the time yet, we are in effect half way through training him Before we started training with the head collar I couldn't even walk him ( and he was only 7 months old, but big) on my own. Now I can walk him without a head collar, in reality even when there are distractions he will walk without the head collar but we are just refining his skills now so that he knows NOT to get distracted. I do put it on him sometimes if I am going somewhere that I know the distractions will be MASSIVE such as the local market but that is more for my peace of mind given that I often have Sascha and my toddler in tow as well. The reality is that we were successful in transferring him back to a flat collar(not even a choker), BUT I think it is because we weren't actually using the head collar as the training tool, we were doing the training and the head collar simply allowed us to control the problem behaviour while we retrained him. At the moment I don't actually own a head collar as it got eaten by Sascha about a month ago I haven't rushed out to buy a new one yet.

sas I think that is a generalisation as we have trained Beau to walk well using the head collar and he is now almost fully transitioned back to a flat collar.

My platelets fluctuated well below normal but within 'safe' levels for about 7 months and then when eventually they dropped really low they decided it was time for the op. I only had to go on the roids a couple of times for 3 or 4 days, couldn't imagine being on them for that long.

I am surprised that they had her on steroids for two years! In that situation a splenectomy is often the preffered course of action. I suffer from auto-immune thrombocytopeania myself and afetr my platelets dropped to 4000 (from a recommended 250000-400000 :D) I had my spleen removed. My platelets were back to normal within 1 day and have never had a problem since. The steroids just have soooo many side effects.

I believe that most homeopathic remedies are even safe for use on pregnant women and young babies as their is no risk of side effects (morgan?) I used them alot during my first pregnancy as I am very prone to colds and flu (due to a compromised immune system) and couldn't take cold and flu drugs.

Beau wore a head collar as he was a horrid puller as a pup. Now I can walk him on a flat collar and as long as there are no massive distractions he won't pull at all. Once he was used to not being allowed to pull on the head collar I used to leave the head collar on but attach the lead to his normal collar so that he got used to feeling the direction coming from there rather than the head collar and then removed the head collar in low distraction situations and now working up to higher distraction situations. He is not fully trained without it yet so if we are going somewhere where there will be LOTS of distractions he still wears it but it's a gradual process so can't expect miracles overnight.

Apart from the risks it works out cheaper for a large dog to simply have heartgard or similiar once a month.

another thought but many pet shops/ vets sell really thin ones as cat leads. Some you have to buy with a harness but I have seen them without.

If you do a search on this you will find quite a few threads to this effect. Incidentally I feed my dogs Coprice as Beau gets sick on almost everything else and Sasch stunk on Supercoat, so now it's coprice for both plus the odd meaty bone and a raw egg a few times a week.

GT I don't get how the ingredients are similiar? Neither of those ingredients are in Bleph-10

I used Bleph-10 in my babies eyes at the age of about two months, should be fine on a dog.

I just had a thought, Beau had a weird rashy thing on his nose not long ago. I think it looked the same, kind of like the whisker/hair follicles were inflamed. He had it for a couple of days and now it's gone. I came to the conclusion that he must have just stuck his nose on a nasty plant while we were out waking. Have a look at your garden and see what's out there.

just so you know there are a few types of mange, while demo mange is more common in pound and stressed dogs there is another type called Sarcoptes which is common in farming areas(or areas where rabbits and foxes frequent), Sascha came off a farming property and had a bout as a pup but is now over it. It is easily treated by spraying them so that they are actually soaking with frontline spray. Definately see your vet and get it checked I just wanted to reassure you that if it is mange it isn't the end of the world, might just be bad luck

The IQ test idea is fun but if you're dog doesn't care about food they'd score crappy. First test is that you put a treat under a tin and time them to see if they get it quickly. If your dog just goes yeah I don't care and walks away does that make them dumb?

Beau - prey 50 pack - 55 fight - 10 flight - 15 Sascha prey - 70 pack- 75 fight - 10 flight-20

Beau trigger to know it is business time(ie. must stay near me and behave) is his head collar going on. I can walk him with the lead clipped to flat collar or even with no lead at all and just wearing head collar but he will still stay next to me as long as the head collar is on. He knows it means work time. Without the head collar he will still return to me when called but he knows he is allowed to run around and be 'off leash' When we took hi herding I took the lead off but left the head collar on initially but Beau found this very confusing as he wasn't sure whether to leave my side, in the end we had to remove it.

Well it's not about cost for me, I had Beau on Advance initially as a puppy and also tried SD for a while but he would just get violently ill on them. He had a variation of the BARF diet for a while but I just didn't have the time for it unfortunately(combination of baby, job, university and dog training, etc.), we tried him on Coprice and the change was unbelievable. Not only was he no longer violently ill but he also calmed down. Even now if we have to give him a meal of something else he becomes ill and goes hyperactive and eats/digs up our backyard