Loungefly

Hi all, I've got an issue with my dog and was hoping to get some feedback. Last week the Mrs. and I took our dog Mia (just over 2 years old) to the beach to play with a friend's dog. They were doing the usual running around and splashing, playing keep away with a stick. Mia at one point let out a yelp and started limping slightly on her back left leg. Nothing extreme. Within half a minute she seemed fine and was putting full weight on her leg again and running around. That night she yelped a bit again so we had a good look at her back legs. We didn't notce any swelling or anything. Next day she was fine most of the day. She then went to kick her pillow around between her legs, like dogs do when they are "making their bed" before they lie down to get comfortable. She let out another yelp. Again, we examined her. We went over her legs, examined her feet and in between her toes thinking maybe she had gotten something stuck in one of them from when we were at the beach. Still nothing. This has happened a few more times since then, with a couple of days in between where she didn't yelp at all. I took her to the beach yesterday and she ran around like a maniac with the other dogs. After about an hour she was running around with another dog and let out another yelp. Again, she limped briefly and then all was okay again. She went back to jumping up and down again, begging me to throw the stick, as if nothing had happened. What puzzles me is that when this happens she limps briefly, maybe a few seconds, and then goes back to putting full weight on her leg and running around like a maniac as she does as if nothing is bothering her. She tends to crawl around a lot when she is being silly. She likes to partially get off the couch and stand with her front feet, while her back legs are splayed out behind her on the couch. She often crawls around on the floor with her legs out behind her when she's playful, as well as wiggling around on her back and moving her hips a lot. She never yelps when doing any of this, despite the fact that she's using what seems to be a full range of motion in her hips and legs. We've been watching her carefully and there doesn't seem to be any specific type of movement that triggers the yelp, although I'm pretty sure in every instance it's happened when she was standing on all four feet. In normal circumstances we would have already taken her to the vet to have her checked out, but due to unexpected bills recently (including a vet bill involving a our cat and a paralysis tick ), we're having to put it off for a few more paydays unfortunately. Just wondering in the meantime if anybody might have an idea what be the cause of this? Thanks

Hi all, I'm just wanting to get some feedback about an issue with our 1 1/2 year old dog Mia and hopefully find out the best way to train her to overcome it. Basically we'd like her to get to the point where she can be off lead out of the yard without running away. Apologies in advance for the length of this post. I tend to ramble in order to get a point across First off, before I say anything else, I'd like to clarify that when she is being taken for walks, she is always on a lead. We never take her for walks in neighborhoods or in streets unless she is on a lead. The only time we allow her to roam a bit off lead is when she is on designated "dogs allowed" areas of the beach. I'm not wanting to take this dog for walks down the street off lead. I'd never do that. A lot of idiots in my neighborhood do that and one of these days they will no doubt lose their dog to a passing car. When entering or leaving the house, you always have to tell her to stay and make her stand back a bit before you enter or leave (we usually keep the front door open with the screen door closed). When visitors come over you always have to tell Mia to step back a bit while the person is entering so there's no chance for her to get thruogh the door. When she can get out the front door, she immediately wants to bolt off and go exploring, and it's a major pain to get her back. She keeps running, stopping, sniffing, running some more etc. Eventually she'll come back to me after following her a bit. Or if I get the car and drive over to where she is and open the door, she will usually run and jump in the car with no drama. If I want to take her for a ride in the car (no garage, car is parked outside), I always have to put the lead on her and walk her to the car. It's not the end of the world I know, but it's an annoyance to have to do this, especially if she won't be getting out of the car at the destination (therefore not leading the lead except to get to the car from the house and then from the car back to the house once I return). She knows what "wanna go for a ride?" means (she loves car rides), but if I open the door and let her out without a lead and walk to the car, she will jog straight past the car and go down the street and tune out what I'm saying to her. At home inside or out in the backyard she is an extremely obedient dog. She has done well in obedience classes (then again that was 99% lead work). On the beach even when she is running around a fair distance from me, she will come back to me when I call her (and I reward her with a treat to reinforce the recall). Obviously in our neighborhood there is more danger so I don't want to give her the luxury of being allowed to be more than a couple of meters from me at all times if she doesn't have a lead on. She gets plenty of walks, lots of exercise so I don't think it's boredom. Once in a blue moon she might dig in the yard but it's very rare, and she hasn't ever tried to escape the backyard or jump the fence in order to explore the neighborhood. I just worry that in the event someone mistakenly forgets to close the side gate properly without us knowing, that she'll start wandering and (assuming we see her when she's leaving the yard) we'll have a hard time getting her to come back. All in all she is a wonderful dog. She's extremely smart, very friendly, wonderful personality, and loves people to death. This issue is really the only ongoing problem we've had with her. She's eager to learn and really likes the attention she's gets when you try and teach her things. I guess I'm trying to figure out the best way to go about breaking her of this behaviour. I feel like if I knew of the proper way to go about teaching her, she would be receptive to it, since she's been very easy to train in every other respect. I'd appreciate some feedback. Thanks ;)

Ah ok I'm in Batemans Bay (south coast NSW, about 4 hours south of Sydney). I'm not too optimistic about my chances of finding any sort of events in my area. I did find the 'Dogs NSW' site though which seems to be the CCC for NSW. Lots of info there. I'll look into it. Thanks for the info

She tends to get that look a lot. She knows how to get what she wants *nods* Thanks The pup, also named Mia (kinda wish we'd told our friend about our dog before she named hers!) is a handful. Very tiny and cute, but a hellraiser to put it mildy That might be an idea. I can see her possibly taking to that. How would I go about doing something like that? As in, who would I talk to about it etc? I wouldn't have a clue where to start. Beautful dog Looks like a gentle pup. Mia is the same re training. It's pretty scary how quickly she will learn new things with minimal training. And it's never a chore for her. She really loves it. Ah, I remember those pics Jess Very pretty dog. Love the agility pic. Well done I reckon Mia would love that sort of thing. Somewhere down the line if the Mrs. and I are able to manage the time needed for agility training, we might just give that a go. Right now we're working on getting her all the way through obedience (she's past all the basics and is currently in Level 3 of a 4 level program).

Thanks ;). I reckon I'll probably do that mostly from now on *nods* Exactly! And in the interest of not wanting to go off on a rant again, I'll leave it at that That's a nice looking dog you have there. Sweet face ;) Ok then, here's Mia: Hanging out with our friends Staffy pup (it's purebred!), coincidentally also named Mia :p

Just a few comments, Thanks Dju for opening the can of worms, and thanks to a couple others who joined in by apparently reading far too much into what I originally posted in order to get on their soapbox. No, it would have been disappointing had I been promoting or glorifying the crossbreeding of these breeds (or any other breeds for that matter), which I clearly wasn’t. Nor was I suggesting that they would have the same temperament just because they were the same crossbreed. Out of general curiosity I was asking others with the same crossbreed about the personalities of their dogs (not “Does your Kelpie/Lab act just like this?”). I never once suggested they would or should have the same traits as my dog. I don’t approve of breeding of different breeds together (the whole ‘designer dog’ thing) out of some coolness factor or for some naive assumption that you will end up with a dog with the best traits of each. The fact is, we were ready to have another dog in our lives and we chose to get ours from the Animal Welfare League because there were dogs in need. That hardly qualifies me to be on the receiving end of same kind of snarkiness that (deservedly so) is reserved for people who glorify the crossbreeding of dogs for the hell of it. I know this and I never suggested otherwise. BTW, that can also be said about purebreds as well. I’ve seen many a purebred dog that was different in temperament to it’s siblings. Thanks But it’s clear I should have posted the original post in a different forum. I’d rather not deal with nitpicking over things that I never actually suggested to begin with. Life’s too short.

Edit: Nevermind

That looks pretty much like what I had in mind. Not a bad price either. I just had a look at Black Dogs. Some nice stuff there, but a little too pricey for me at the moment. Yeah, I had a look another look at ebay right after my first post. The pictures there are a bit better. A lot of them just look like standard thin nylon rope that you can buy at Bunnings. I reckon that might be all I'd need. Thanks for the feedback everyone. Muchly appreciated

Hi all, I'm curently in obedience training with my 14 month old Lab/Kelpie cross Mia, and last week we started Level 3, which emphasizes a lot of off lead handling. We did a distance recall exercise where the owner and dog have to walk a few metres, stop, the owner takes off the lead and makes the dog stay, and then the owner has to walk several metres in front of the dog and then do a recall off lead. Some of the owners, including myself, weren't overly confident that their dogs wouldn't decide to take off running around the field as soon as the lead was taken off, so the instructor had a very long and thin lead (about 5 metres long I'd say) that she attached to the dog once we took their regular leads off. The owners would then go ahead and walk away while the instructor stood way off to the side at the end of this lead which the dogs barely noticed. (giving them the impression that they weren't really being restrained, which was the idea). I'm wondering if anyone knows where I might be able to order a lead like this. None of the pet shops in town have what I'm looking for. I suppose I could always try to make one myself out of some twine or something , but I'd like to use a proper one. I'd love to be able to get one so I can practice in the park in between classes. It would be a big help in training. Thanks

Darcy looks beautiful . She definitely looks more Labbish than Mia. Mia seems to look more Lab than Kelpie in some photos, and more Kelpie than Lab in others. It depends on the angle I guess. Walking her down the street most people that see her just assume she's a Lab. Her personality is totally Lab. The friendliest dog I have ever seen! (Too friendly for her own good sometimes ) Absolutely loves the water and will retrieve all day long if you let her. Speaking of agility we've actually considered getting her into that because she's such a high energy dog, loves to learn and can run like no dog I've ever seen. I'm not sure we'd be able to set aside the necessary time that is needed for agility though, as I'm sure there's a lot involved. Thanks for the pics

Hi Jess Yeah I try to make sure I dry her off straight away if she's not going back in the water straight away, although when she comes out of the water she tends to roll around like crazy in the dry sand like a nut. I'm guessing it's to warm her up. Cool I think it's a good mix. I'm guessing that's the dog in your avatar? Have a couple of pics you could post? I'm always curious to see other Kelpie Lab Crosses since I don't know anyone else locally that has one (and I haven't seen many pics of them). Here'a a couple of Mia: Mia @ 6 months old (unnerving our cat) : Mia a couple of hours ago at the beach (13 months old):

Well, I had a feeling I might be concerned over nothing :D I took her yesterday. She went straight into the water as usual. I guess the cold water is my problem, not hers She wasn't able to swim much because the water was a little too choppy, but she did get a workout on her leg from trying to drag me down the beach with her frisbee in her mouth . I think I'll probably have to stick to short walks for the time being until it gets a bit warmer. Thanks for the replies everyone :D

Hi all, We live near the beach and I'm wondering if it might be too cold for my dog to go swimming. Mia, our 14 month old Lab/Kelpie cross, had patella surgery a few weeks ago and we're now at the stage where we need to get her swimming to help build the strength back up in her leg. She's loves swimming which is great, and last week we took her to the beach for the first time in 6 months to swim briefly. She's not allowed off the lead yet due to her injury so I of course had to go in the water with her to hold the lead and I was flinching like crazy because the water was cold. It didn't seem to bother her one bit though. There was no hesitation on her part at all to go further out into the water. She loved it. It's supposed to get up to about 18-20 degrees here in the next couple of days. I guess what I'm wondering is if there's any reason to worry that she might be getting in water that's too cold. It might be a silly question but I just thought I'd ask anyway. I just assume that if it's too cold then she obviously won't want to follow me in. When got her last year as a puppy it was in the middle of Spring so this is the first time we've had to consider this. Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks :D

Well, she's back home from surgery. The vet gave us some antibiotics and Mia has her leg bandaged all the way up. Luckily it's bandaged up pretty tight and thick so her movement is restricted pretty well. Mia has to go back in a couple of weeks to have it rebandaged. She's laying on a blanket now in the loungeroom with a somber "what in the hell has happened to me?" look on her face. Actually the laundry room is tiny so I think it will do. The actual floor space to walk is about .7 by 2.2 metres (yes, I actually measured it ).

Thanks for the replies everyone. I regret not getting a crate for her when she was still a young pup. I had heard about crate training but at the time didn't think it was necessary for her. Obviously at the time I didn't take into consideration what's happening now. Looks like that's what she truly needs. Unfortunately we're stretched to the limit and can't afford one. (We've had to put off paying a few bills in order to pay for this operation as it is). I think we'll have to make more use of the laundry room for her during the day. She sleeps there at night and it's the only place we have now where we can put her that she can rest comfortably yet not enough space to run around in. I'm not really looking forward to it since she's such a people oriented dog that loves to follow us around like our shadow, but it won't be forever. Thanks again :p

Hi all, Just thought I might ask for some feedback regarding Mia, our 12 month old Kelpie/Lab cross that is going in for patella surgery on Monday. Some background first.....About 3 weeks ago my wife came home from work and found her hobbling around, holding up her right hind leg. We aren’t sure how it happened (I was at work when the Mrs. came home). Inititally we thought she might have had something stuck in her paw, or at the most maybe just pulled a muscle. She wasn’t limping the entire time. It was intermittent, but not frequent enough for us to think that it wouldn’t take care of itself, plus she didn’t seem to be in any obvious discomfort (we were ignorant about luxating patellas at the time). A couple weeks later (in hindsight we realise we shouldn’t have waited so long) we took her to a vet. He said there was a chance she had a luxating patella. He mentioned the procedures involved and said it would be about $1000 or possibly more to fix it (not including the initial x-rays to suss it out completely first). My wife and I were stressing about this as this couldn’t have come at a worse possible time for us financially. On the advice of a few co-workers I got a second opinion at another vet that has been highly recommended. She mentioned pretty much the same thing. Told us if it was what she thought it was it would cost us between $800 and $1000 including x-rays. Long story short, we had the X-rays done a few days ago. It turns out that a small piece of bone at the top of the tibia (that the ligament attaches to) has broken off the bone which is creating slack in the ligament which is causing the knee to pop out of place. The vet said there’s a chance the groove in the femur probably won’t have to be deepened and that they will most likely just have to reattach the piece of bone to the tibia using a wire or a screw. The surgery will be costing $600. She offered to let us pay half after the operation and the other half we can pay off over time which is a big relief. She’ll be going in for surgery Monday morning. My wife and I are crossing our fingers that everything goes off without a hitch. At this point our main concern is keeping her from aggravating it while recovering (6 weeks I think she said). As I mentioned she’s a kelpie/lab cross and is a nutcase when it comes to taking off at the drop of a hat when she’s in the mood to play or if she sees one of our cats passing by. She’s a very energetic dog. We’re taking some dog wire fencing and making a 3 by 3 metre area just outside the back door so she’ll be able to go outside and do her business while not being able to run around like a nut. The couch is her favourite place to lounge around inside so I think we’ll have to try to break her of that for the time being. She’s never been crate trained because we never felt the need (kinda regretting that now). She’s pretty much well behaved for the most part but she is prone to taking off at full pelt around the house or out in the yard when she’s in a playful mood. I’ve always tried to stick to a routine of daily walks for to release some of the pent up energy and to get her out there to socialise with other dogs and people. If she goes without a walk even for a day or two you can see gets increasingly fidgety over time so this is worrying me a bit if we’re going to have to limit her mobility for an extended amount of time. It’s going to be a long 6 weeks. Before we had the x-rays the vet mentioned a splint so I’m hoping this would slow her down a bit, although from what I’ve read the splint only stays on a couple weeks? I guess I was just looking for some feedback from others who have had this sort of surgery done for an active medium to large breed with lots of energy. Sorry about the novel. It's just been on our minds constantly the last few days

Thanks for the feedback everyone. You've all pretty much confirmed what I had been thinking. Never hurts to get a few extra opinions . Looks like I'll go with UA and GB for the time being and see how that goes. Funny you should say that. I just got called them a few minutes ago to ask about it. Also found that Queanbeyan Rural Supplies (which is a bit closer to where I'm going) has it as well, $30 a bag. Not too shabby. Ditto to Laucke Mills having excellent customer service. I emailed them last Thursday afternoon asking if there was anywhere that sold smaller bags so I could try it out before buying a 22kg bag. I wasn't necessarily after any free samples. I would have been happy to pay for a smaller amount to try it out. Within a couple hours they emailed me back to say they sent me out some free samples, 2packs of GB and 2 packs of UA. They got here this morning. Very impressed

Hi all, Hoping to get some feedback re Coprice dog food vs Great Barko and Uncle Albers. We've got a 10 month old Lab/Kelpie cross and we've been looking to switch dry foods for a while. She's been on Supercoat Puppy and Supercoat Sensitive. Her coat hasn't been doing that great (some itching as well) and we thought we'd try something new. After reading around these forums I had noticed heaps of people raving about Great Barko and Uncle Albers. I thought it would be worth a try so I emailed Laucke Mills and they sent me some sample bags of both GB and UA. Obviously with samples bags it's not enough to see how she does on it in terms of coat etc, but as far as taste goes she absolutley loves the stuff. I put a bit of each in two bowls and she scarfed down both and spent the next 10 minutes sniffing around for more . Soooo, I thought I'd just go ahead and buy a 22kg bag of one or the other. I called the nearest place (hardware/feed store) that sells it only to find out they don't stock it any more. The guy said that they sell quite a bit of Coprice Family Dog and Working Dog. He reckons it's the best. He mentioned going to some vet conference and how a bunch of vets were sitting around a table talking about foods and that the general consensus was that Coprice was the best dry dog food available these days. For all I know he could have been just making it up to get a sale, although he seemed genuine . I have heard a few good things about Coprice, but I've noticed more praise aimed at GB and UA on these forums. I looked on the Coprice website and it looks as though cereals are the main ingredient. I had always thought that wasn't supposed to be a good thing? Anyhoo, I've found a place in Canberra that sells GB and UA and I'll be heading up that way in a couple weeks so getting my hands on it isn't a problem. What this guy was telling me about Coprice thought got me thinking. Anyone here have any experiences feeding their dogs both Coprice and GB or UA?

Hi all, Just curious if any of you would have some feedback re a problem I'm having with my pup. Mia, my 7 month old Lab/Kelpie cross, has been scratching often the past few months. We had a pretty bad flea problem for a while. Having never owned a dog with allergies we pretty much assumed that the fleas were the main culprit. We managed to get the flea problem under control just over a month ago and the scratching hasn't subsided, so we're thinking it's something that could be helped by changing her diet. Ever since we brought her home when she was 9 weeks old, we've been feeding her Supercoat Puppy dry food and Nature's Gift Puppy wet food. We always thought Supercoat was a good choice as it fits within our limited budget, yet it seems to be better quality than typical supermarket brands. I guess I'm looking for a food to try that won't break the budget but will help with her skin/ allergy problems. I've searched the forums for different 'budget' brands and find all the different views and responses a little overwhelming. Some people say this, others say no, try this. I noticed Supercoat has a Sensitive line of dry food that seems like it might be worth a try. I noticed Purina Pro Plan has something similar, but it's way out of our price range. I've seen others recommend Coprice, Bonnis, Boomer, etc but I'm assuming these are just general budget food recommendations and not foods that would potentially help with skin irritation. We're really anxious to get this scratching problem under control since it's obviously causing her discomfort. We enrolled her in obedience class a few weeks ago and she's coming along really well with that, but the frequent distractions caused by her incessant scratching makes it harder that it needs to be. I'm just thinking about how much more she would get out of it if she weren't having to cope with this all the time. Any help would be greatly appreciated.