ellz

You decide what she is going to eat and don't muck around offering alternatives. She'll eat when she's hungry.

I wouldn't mind betting that there possibly ARE toilet spots inside that you probably haven't found yet.

Many gundog breeds are like this. They are very food driven. This can be both an advantage OR a disadvantage!!!! If you haven't already, read Marley and me or even at a pinch, watch the movie. CLASSIC story of inexperienced dog owners with a strong-willed dog. And the amazing thing was that even though I could understand the frustrations of the author, I personally didn't even think the dog was THAT badly behaved compared to some that I have owned or met!

May I just ask WHY an inexperienced dog owner would be looking at owning as many as 4 dogs straight up anyway? Honestly, you may just be better off considering one, two at a pinch initially to see how you go as dog "parents" before you bite off more than you can chew and get so many at one time! Some people find one dog a handful, without planning to get so many from the get-go. Just because you want to, or do, live on a country property doesn't mean that dog ownership will be any easier. Personally, I find that living on a country property after many years in suburbia is a lot harder when it comes to dog ownership and I consider myself a relatively experienced dog person. Personally, I'd be looking at a desexed of either to begin with, do your apprenticeship and then add others from there IF you really feel that you want to, need to and can cope with more dogs. Many will disagree but I HATE running entire bitches together. The word bitch didn't come from a nice place, believe me!!!

Yep! Koda Stafford really does not enjoy chicken frames or necks. You hand them to her and you can literally see her raising her lips so that they don't touch the raw bone and all of her body language is saying "yuck...if I absolutely MUST!" Then she watches everybody else eat and watches your hands, probably hoping that she'll be offered something not quite as disgusting! If nothing is forthcoming, she'll eat it v-e-r-r-r-r-r-y slowly with a really disgusted look on her face, staring at you the whole time!

Hey, not your turn Ellz :D It was post it now or wander off and completely forget!!

Minimising is one thing, I think most dog owners do subconciously do that. Trying to completely STOP a normal bodily function is another altogether. Sheesh, I know what I'd like to do to somebody who stops me from going to the lav when I need to. Mr Ellz has tried once and I threatened to take his head off and poo in the hole!! :D

I guess it is all in the definition. What some might class as bad behaviour, others might class as character or normal breed behaviour. For example, my Roger is probably my dream dog. I bred him and he has spent many, many hours with me in his short life. I don't see any major character flaws or anything other than a sense of humour, yet Mr Ellz says he's a bastard (to which I reply "takes one to know one!" :D).

Some dogs don't need them, some do well with them....each is an individual. I didn't need to use them with Roger, he just naturally places his feet where they belong. Until Flame went missing on the other hand, she was on them a couple of times per day or there was NO way she would stand still, let alone let put her feet in the right place! :D I've also found that putting them on the ground, no matter what the size of the dog on them, seems to make the dog feel more secure although many people seem to use them on tables. Harder on your back for the smaller breeds but I'd rather have a happy dog.

I'm laughing at you laughing!

I have used Coates Animal Transport, Jetpets and Dogtainers for international export. All are very good, Michelle from Coates does everything herself so there is a more personal touch involved. Her prices are excellent as well. Dogtainers ACT did the work when I sent Alice to Japan this year and were incredibly efficient as well. Jetpets were the most expensive of the lot and now I cannot really justify spending the extra for the same level of service that was provided by Coates and Dogtainers for a lesser amount of money. I believe DOLer wayrod also does exports as well and having used him within Australia on a couple of occasions now, I highly recommend him too.

Exactly. I've been known to fast track it down the road dragging a sniffing dog with a puckering bum so that he doesn't drop at an awkward or inappropriate place but that's about it. What's easily deposited is just as easily collected by a hooman hand in a plastic bag!

I actually find that a bit cruel. When you've gotta go, you've gotta go. Plastic bags were a truly wonderful invention really!

Blame the lousy photographer for that. I'm not saying they're good photos or good QUALITY photos....just showing the difference between saving as a PNG and saving as JPG. And as I said originally, I only posted so that the OP could see a range of different things that they could probably do a lot better than me with the same camera. I don't portray myself as a photographer, I don't aspire to such things and I CERTAINLY wouldn't want to even attempt to compete with any of you absolutely amazing photographers now would I? And editing to add: yet another part of the forum to stay out of. DOL is losing its appeal more and more every day.

The Olympus is negligible, depending upon your settings. Certainly a MAJOR difference from my Sony Cyber-Shot. I found it worse on my Olympus than my Lumix. Shutter lag is apparently one of the things they addressed in the SP600-UZ. It was only released in Feb this year, I got mine in June and I've found it very good so far. It has a burst setting which is very effective unlike many of the other P & S cameras. As I said, I'm going to be watching Trafford with interest when he has a play with it on Thursday....he was very keen on it after reading the specs.

And another. No cropping, just reduced by 50% JPG PNG

The Olympus is negligible, depending upon your settings. Certainly a MAJOR difference from my Sony Cyber-Shot.

OK...photo I have literally just taken now (for a completely different type of comparison debate! ) All that I have done to it is cropped it and reduced size by 50% (was 1382 x 1283 after the crop). JPG PNG

No, there aren't any P & S that give the option of RAW. All save as JPEG. The best you can do after that is whatever you do in your graphics program. Saving as PNG is still not the same as saving in RAW but it is a better option than JPEG but the file sizes are HUGE and my computer just wouldn't cope with them because it is old and slow. Whenever I want to do anything with PNG or decent graphic program I have to kick Mr Ellz off his laptop and that doesn't happen often without a fight.

Just do yourself a favour and don't mention them in the Pug forum...I was nearly lynched for saying that I use them in there!

That is a really good bargain...but just watch the postage. Last time I saw a bundle like that the postage was over $100. BTW, they've only been saved as JPG to reduce the size because most will be going on my website in some form or other....the duplicate ones I have stored as PNG are crystal clear and look amazing. Good enough I believe for prints! I only shared these so that you could see what variety the camera was capable of.....from macro to movement and in between.

yes editing to add: if qld born it should start with a 4. nsw born so does it start with a 2? also where do i find entry forms? can't see any on the dogs qld site?? Yep, NSW starts with a 2. Some people use the dogsoft downloadable software. I had nothing but trouble with it so I use http://www.showmanager.com.au for my entries. If you only have 1 dog, you can use it for nothing.

A simple chip shouldn't be a problem and in some breeds even a missing tooth will not be penalised. In other breeds, if the tooth is lost as a result of an accident or removed by a vet as a result of same, they can still be shown with a vet's certificate BUT be aware that some judges will still penalise.

yes editing to add: if qld born it should start with a 4.