JulesP

Any of us that are telling you to return him are just doing so out of concern for you.

Yep have been using it. Dogs love it. Cheaper to buy tins of no name sardines though.

Well done to you both

I have only bred one litter. One of the things that put me off ever doing it again was one of the owners wanted to return the bitch. But they wanted to sell her back for the full price that they had paid for her. They had bred 2 litters from her in a short period of time too, so she had paid them back the original price they had paid me. I was furious. I do wish I had sucked it up though and just got her back. She has gone to a good home and I had no fear of them putting her down at the time. It left a really bad taste in my mouth though. If I ever breed again I doubt I would sell to another breeder. This person came highly recommended too.

What if you have to have the dog put down in 2 years time? I imagine that it would be much worse than sending the pup back now.

I assume that you haven't had Xrays done? I would get those done first, assuming that you can do so for a young pup. If the Xrays confirm the vets theory then I would personally send the puppy back. I know you had all that trouble with the parvo pup as well but this is going to cost heaps and is going to be traumatic. I really feel for you as I have a 12 week old pup so have just been through all the same excitement etc so can really understand how incredibly shite you must feel.

Hard to give advice without seeing what is going on. My 12 week old border collie plays with the 2 older border collies and it certainly looks and sounds very nasty. Lots of growling and snapping. They all end up covered in spit. They are just playing though.

I got weekly photos too. It made the wait lots of fun. Sorry you haven't had the same experience. There have been some not good stories on here recently about sick pups and people not getting the papers. Can you say what breed it is?

I am going to vote for an Aussie or Lappie. Leaning more towards a Lappie.

Puppy Amber and Kayla thinking about being friends!

Sigh. Just put up my second cat run yesterday. Cost me $300 off ebay. Safe happy cats. It just isn't that hard to do. Hope you and doggie are ok today. Really the neighbors should pay for the vet and doctors bill.

If you read the Give my Dog a Bone book you will see that the idea is to balance the food over a week. Each meal doesn't have to be balanced. It is supposed to be an easy way of feeding ;) I personally would rather feed natures gift tinned or kibble rather than risk salmonella.

Steve is changing his business name to - Steve'spurelypositiveclickertrainingandtargetingdogwhispering

I have to teach toy removal in the class I take. Usually only 1 pup in the class of 10+ will actually play in the first place! The pups that have tugged well have been those that have been 'taught', so although you don't want it to be on command that might be the only way. My dogs would rather have pats during down time, so that is what they get.

The changing directions only works if you can do it really quickly so that the dog can feel it. I imagine that you can't get around super quickly? You also need to treat immediately the dog is at your side, which I also imagine would be rather tricky to do if you are moving along.

I think you stopping when the pup pulls would be a good method to try. Pup starts pulling you stop and don't do anything. The minute pup looks at you, reward with treat. Reason being when the pups looks at you to see what you are doing it is loosening the lead. So you are teaching pup that loose lead means a reward. You could even set up what we call penalty yards. Have something that the pup really wants set up, dinner or fav toy. Move towards object. If pup pulls go back to the start line. Pup might not pull so quickly next time, keep going. Pup will probably lunge forwards again. Go right back to start line. Continue until you can reach the object with no pulling. Pup learns that it doesn't get what it wants if it is pulling.

My neighbours dog visits every morning quite early. My dogs hate this dog and bark their heads off. It pisses on my wheely bin and my dogs kick bark chip everywhere as they race up and down the fenceline. The road is pretty busy too. It must be around 14-15 now so hopefully I will not have to put up with it much longer. They have no fences at all and when I asked them to keep it off my place their response was that they would have to chain the dog up. Ummm not my problem. They have even said that they think their dog annoys my dogs - umm you think? Luckily it doesn't chase the horses. But they are nice people and have rescued my horses a couple of times when trees have fallen on fences so don't want to cause a war by calling the ranger.

I've used Glo Black on a white horse so it certainly doesn't dye the animal.

Yes I also build drive for targets but I don't use targets to build drive

Aloveen is a good shampoo. My pup is being bathed weekly at the moment. Mainly because I don't want to take a filthy dirty pup to pre-puppy school. I also want to get her well used to washing.

Think Corvus still doesn't get drive and is using the word in a different way to the way most of the rest of us are. Think this is possibly deliberate as she doesn't seem to be a stupid person. Makes for very frustrating conversations. To use an item to create drive, the dog needs to really value it. If your dog really values its target stick then you could use it to create drive. I can't see that many dogs would find touching its nose to a target stick super, super rewarding though. If you watch Susan G play her crate games, she gets the dog into drive first. The crate isn't the reward object. The dog associates the crate with getting a reward. Running to the crate isn't putting the dog in drive. She gets it in drive first. My dogs have super high value for nose touches. They will run on every single contact they see to offer nose touches. Don't think there is any drive involved in this behaviour. I have just built the value very high for contacts.

Get dog in drive, target or lure or whatever.

Amber is either sleeping in her pen in the kitchen or outside with the big dogs. She is 10 weeks old and I haven't heard a squeak out of her. The first week I did have a babysitter (older dog) in the room with her. The cats also sleep in the kitchen.

Good dogs!

If you aren't going to do obedience then it doesn't matter which side the dog loose lead walks on. For agility the dog needs to work on both sides of you. Both my dogs will do a formal heel on both sides as well as loose lead walking. Most obedience clubs have levels and you have to master each level to move up. When you get to formal heeling and if you don't do it then I guess you will not get to move any further on.