kelpiecuddles

How does one utilise a farm dog when it has to be kept crated lest it get bitten by a snake? Herding of sheep and cattle rarely takes place with the dog at close enough quarters that the owner would see the snake before the dog did. We could potentially have snakes within a few metres of the house given we live on the back of bushland, I certainly won't be restricting my dogs from the backyard for the rest of their lives just in case. I'd much rather train avoidance if I could, infact we have two pet snakes and I'm quite tempted to do some training at home having read this thread, I don't have access to an e-collar but I'll look in to other options.

Bearing in mind that I actually don't have picture hooks added anywhere in my house other than a couple that were already here(and I'm not supposed to add any more), so I have no idea where these pictures will go LOL

OMG Kirislin, if you read this you have to check out this one! http://www.etsy.com/au/listing/127394356/a-little-loony-toon-italian-greyhound?ref=shop_home_active

Oh I like them too Alkhe and she even has some basset ones! Think I might have to buy a couple there too!

Oh and there is a stunning merle Aussie shepherd, just incase anyone was looking for one. Makes me wish I had one so I could justify buying the print LOL. Thinking one of these, nicely framed might make a lovely thank you gift for the breeder who my show girl is coming from.

Could be a mastiff X pit bull. It would be pretty typical though of the media to decide to latch on to the pit bull X half of his breeding rather than calling him a mastiff X like everyone else had been.

I've bought myself the one of the basset sitting on the beach ones. I've also contacted him to find out if I can get the one of the golden retriever standing on the beach in an 8 X 10. My aunt and her partner have a much loved beach house, aunt has a goldie and her partner has a black and tan dachshund, which he also has a lovelty print of one running through the waves. Thought I'd get them a set for christmas

Sorry guys :p I've just been looking at his actual website, he doesn't have any of the dog ones on there but his originals sell for excess of $600 so $20-30 for a good quality artist signed print including post is very reasonable I think.

Just thought I'd share this facebook store, he sells prints of his watercolour artwork for heaps of breeds, including many of the less common ones. There's a couple of gorgeous basset hound ones that I am very tempted by :p http://stores.ebay.com/watercolorbydjr_W0QQsspagenameZL2222QQtZk

Earlier on the radio here they were reporting ten minutes. As i understood it the grandmother tried her best for that time(hence why she ended up with exhaustion) and then the mother turned up and between them they were able to pull the dog off. I can't see many 70 year olds being able to pull a dog of that size off, I probably would have grabbed a rake and just beat the hell out of it...

Also I'm just looking at the photo of your car and is there any reason they couldn't travel in the boot area? You could probably get away with covering the little tiny windows on the sides and they might be less likely to notice any dogs that would be visible out the rear window as you'd be past them and gone before they got a chance to get worked up. If you tethered them in to the centre of the car so they couldn't get up on the wheel arches to see out the tiny back windows then they would be hard pressed to see much that way.

If you think it's one starting it and the other is following suit maybe you could start with one crate to put the instigator in and have the other one on the seat and see how you go and then get a second crate only if necessary.(But I would keep the possibility of needing two crates in mind when selecting sizes, etc so you know they'll fit if necessary) Have you tried the window shades that they sell for babies?

Yes, I agree. I guess the thing that makes it hard is that a lot of people don't have the skills to understand their dogs temperament and truly assess it's behaviour. That said I used to have a rock solid dog who's best friend was a cat. One day the neighbours cat fell off the fence in to our yard and he snapped and attacked it. Thankfully I rushed the cat to the vet and it was OK but prior to that I would NEVER have thought him capable of that sort of behaviour, he was well trained, very well socialised and had never shown agression of any kind before. It is possible that this dog did just snap for some reason and hadn't shown any signs to suggest this might happen.

No matter how rock solid your dog is there can never be a 100% guarantee regardless. I would say my basset hound was rock solid but I still have a little bit of fencing that I slide across in front of their beds when they are sleeping so they don't get a fright if a child was to trip and fall next to them or whatever. I would have said in the past that my kelpie was also rock solid but as she gets older she is getting less tolerant and while I trust my kids to behave appropriately around her I am less certain of other peoples kids. I honestly don't think she would ever bite someone(she just gets an unimpressed look on her face and looks at me as if to say it's time to go) but at times I can see when she has had enough and I like to be able to remove her before she ever considered snapping.

Just a thought but if he seems otherwise calm maybe he enjoys looking out the window.

I stronly suspet my 3 year old daughter is my basset's heart person. I was watching them at the park the other day, Celeste would put her arms around her to give her a hug and whenever she stopped Josie would wrap her head in to Celeste's chest asking her to hold her close. It was very sweet, and interesting that she really doesn't behave that way with anyone else.

If they are very long now maybe get the vet to do them once and them use the dremel regularly to maintain them after that

If they aren't going to destroy a soft crate it might work well as they are more enclosed. Depends on your dog though, mine are happy in a soft crate but they aren't for everyone.

Well we are now heading for 16 hours since last update..... Just saying :D

That's fabulous Steve, don't have a jumper now but did many years ago and wish we'd known about it then, he had to be chained for a short while when we were staying on acreage as the neighbours dog taught him how to jump the fence, this would have solved all our problems. Definately something I'll be keeping in the back of my mind if anyone ever tells me they are having problems in that regard!

I suspect they are less common over here as there are fewer dogs living in apartments and we don't get snowy winters that make it hard for them to play outdoors, most people here would leave their dogs in the yard if they weren't going to be home. I suspect that as more people live in apartments and more apartments accept dogs the demand will start to increase.

No updates for 12 hours! Wonder if that means what I think it means!!!

If it was me, given it has improved between last night and this morning I would probably leave it until Monday to see whether it did resolve completely, if it didn't I'd be off to the vet.

I know of people who have used the smaller version of these with cats to prevent them from leaving their yard and found them very effective.

I actually tried to buy a dressing gown from the op shop today, huge op shop no dressing gowns! Totally irrelevant to this thread as I was looking for one for a dress up party for my son(Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy) but an interesting coincidece that you suggested looking at the op shop for them LOL