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!! Maybe we shouldn't have bothered with accommodation Pippi? We could just sleep on the beach and drag ourselves back into the water when we dry out!

Also consider his age. Darcy at 11 months sounds very similar to Barkly. I believe it was partly her age (early teenage issues) and also me probably taking her good behaviour for granted and her pushing the boundaries as a result. I haven't read Ruff Love but have always done TOT for meals etc. I increased the work required for meals and anything else she wanted and it really didn't take that long for her to come back into line. Removed the opportunity for self-reward as well, even if it meant she spent time on-lead when she was usually off-lead. She's recently started pushing the boundaries again. I have spent hours at the beach lately which she finds incredibly rewarding and same issue with me taking her behaviour for granted and letting her slip on a few things. Not any more

What's going on with these working dogs? They're all going soft! The heat is a worry though, forecast is 40C for Thursday. I'm taking Darcy's clam shell with me, might even freeze some big ice cubes to keep the water cool. That said, I reckon Darcy will cope just fine and it will be me in that clam Anyone for a water fight....

Kavik I believe the Sydney days are being held now, if you go to the Agility Click website it will tell you. I know ours was required to be booked in on the 14th so I'd imagine it would be too late unfortunately to grab even an audit spot.

Me Have a working spot for boxwork and advanced day. Not real keen on the weather forecast so far.... really wishing it was going to be about 10 C cooler.

You're supposed to be in Vic, especially if you're in the ring as opposed to doing something like marshalling. I don't think many people would get too worried about it these days, a lot of trials lack good helpers and stewards and would probably be very grateful for the assistance, member or not. The judges I have stewarded with have all known I was very new to obedience and made a good effort to explain what they required of me. Nearly all have made a point of explaining what they were looking for in each exercise and even gave me a rundown on each score and why they gave that person that score. Highly recommend stewarding a few trials, and continuing to do so even once you've started trialling.

I have to admit I cringe when I see Labs off-lead, particularly at the beach. Even if its only a small percentage who are badly behaved with no recall, they still outnumber the other breeds easily and seem far worse when they are so rough and rude with other dogs. Thankfully a lot of them are either ball or stick mad and tend to focus on their owners, but those that don't

Mine's only half gundog, the other half is working dog. I've grown up with working dogs, but Darcy's my first pet dog so I couldn't really comment on how different she is because I don't really know. However she has been incredibly easy to train, if my next dogs are as easy as she has been then I'll be very very lucky.

If i had of known about the chest infection before this dog was on my doorstep i would've advised her to wait till the dog is better as the last thing i need is for a dog to infect salon dogs with something like KC (plus i don't like putting a dog through any unneeded stress). Maybe i did the wrong thing by grooming this dog but i didn't want to turn around and make her go all the way home again :/ If, as a customer of yours, I'd found out you'd accepted a sick dog (potentially KC or complications of!) for grooming it would be the last time you would see me in your salon!! Think about the risk to your other customers dogs, not just the extra stress on the sick dog RIP little dog

Definitely the Agility Nationals here. Thinking that maybe, just maybe, if we went as clean and clear as we could, we might scrape ourselves a place in the finals To come out with 2 passes in JDX, a 2nd and a 4th and our JDX title, and to have qualified not once, but twice for the finals was incredible. To come in fastest but with one dropped bar and a 4th in the finals, was far more than I ever could've dreamed for. I have goosebumps just thinking about it

Do a search in the training section for a thread called "socialisation vs neutralisation"

I feed twice a day. A bone before I go to work which has been routine since she came home at 8 weeks old. Made me leaving for work a good thing and I see no reason to change. Then she gets her vegie mush etc of a night-time before I go to bed. Whatever time that happens to be. I don't fast her. She misses her bone on training mornings but gets training treats instead.

Have never noticed it before and there has been no change to anything either diet wise or grass wise. But she is a bit sensitive to the itchies so I would not be surprised. I would've thought it would be on all four feet and all toes though. It is drying up nicely with the salt water bath from last night I just need to convince her to leave them alone and that her soggy tongue is not the answer to all that is bad

Just noticed Darcy licking her feet last night and but I couldn't see anything wrong. She was licking them again tonight and she has some redness and irritation on the inside of her outside toes. I.e 4 toes on each foot - the inside of the 2 outside toes are slightly red and a bit sore but I can't really see what's causing the issue. Front feet are fine. Tried taking photos to post here but have no hope. I have given both back feet a soak in salty water. The only thing I can think of is she spent nearly 1/2 an hour playing fetch along the edges of a sandy lake last night and am wondering if the sand has rubbed/irritated when caught between her toes? Does anyone know what else it could be? I'd like to stick some socks on her back feet to stop her licking them but I think they probably need to get some air to dry out?

She gets lamb meat every morning as well as lamb bones of some sort every second/third day, which she chews the meat and fat off and then plays with the bone. I wasn't keen on having a dog on dry food every day. She needs real fat and meat too Ivy got nuts over lamb meat!! Which I get at a really great price per kilo too. Jess, understand. Were you feeding Evo or Cal Nat? Evo - never tried Cal Natural as I suspect it is the grain or the preservatives that make her itchy. Just means there is no more back up food and I have to be more organised. The other night she had an apple, some yoghurt and a handful of leftover steak pieces from training for her dinner. :rolleyes: She did have an entire roo tail for brekky so it wasn't like she was starving.

If you read my post again BB you will see I had no problem with the product originally, even being fed once every few weeks. I've never had any other product giving her a bellyache either fed in similar fashion, just the fact that she spends a week scratching herself to pieces due to the itchies.

I was using it as a back up food, i.e when I didn't have raw defrosted or on "junk food" nights, so about once every 10 days to 2 weeks with no issue. Forgot to get a bag for a while and then bought a new bag back in about Oct/Nov. Not happy with the new bag as it has an almost instantaneous heating effect on my dog. It is like I have just taken her for a big run, you can clearly see the increase in her respiration. Last time I fed it she woke me at 4.15 am absolutely desperate to go to the loo as she had a belly ache. She's never done this before and I haven't fed it since. BTW I was using it as my dog doesn't seem to tolerate grain or preservatives.

Awww thanks LP but I'm very lucky to have a very good dog who makes me look good. She's truly one in a million :D

I'd like to see some big improvement & more consistency in my handling skills instead of the stupid little mistakes I make which cost passes. Skills: Contacts, weave entries and obstacle discriminations. Obviously more box work and advanced handling work from the GD workshop :D Titles and passes: JDM and more Top Dog points would be awesome. ADX as we have 2 passes to go and make a start on ADM and ADO. Might have a crack at CD but I think I said that last year.

Fantastic to see some different brags in here :D Rally, frisbee and exam results I have a last training session brag from last night. We set up Masters course last night with a serpentine at the end of it. Once we've run them the usual way successfully quite often we ran them backwards for something different. Anyone who has seen Susan Garrett's "One Jump" DVD will probably remember her awesome demonstration of "change arms change directions" with her recalling her young dog Encore along about half a dozen jumps set up in serpentine. Well, we've never tried it but I do use the Greg Derrett change of arm so thought we'd give it a try. I led out past the last jump in the serpentine, released and did the change of arm x 3 and Darcy did it perfectly!! Copped a sh*tstirring for showing off but I didn't know whether she'd do it or not :D

It got the better of me :rolleyes: Just pre-ordered GD's new DVD. Best put my name down on that support group list KC

http://www.geocities.com/vicobedience/ Click on Events to find the trials. Good luck

Yep, and they would need to be chewed to release it. Generally the seeds pass through whole so it's very unlikely the seeds would every cause a problem, unless of course you just fed seeds as the sole diet! If they seeds pass through a juicer, they don't remain whole. I cut the cores out. I do the same as poodlefan, all my vegies & fruit go through a juicer and I'm not willing to take the risk.

Apple pips contains very small amounts of arsenic.

Thanks KC - will look forward to it ***sends fast post vibes for KC's GD DVD***