huski

My beagle puts on weight easily too - they love eating but don't need any where near as much food as you think! I feed Daisy on adult Royal Canin, she gets 3/4 of a cup in the morning and sometimes a bone (chicken wing, neck etc) at night... and that's it! Two cups a day plus bones especially when its puppy food is way too much.

I would let them meet on neutral ground - when we got our last pup I bought Micha out on a lead, and let them meet out the front of the house. I would keep them both on lead initially. We did something similar when my friend got his new dog too, except because his dog was older, we took Micha and his dog Oprah for a walk around the block together.

I don't vaccinate yearly but when I do its a C3 unless I have to board the dogs, in which case we use a C5. We get heartworm done too and its about $100 for both the vacc and the heartworm.

Hi Kelpiepupmum I wouldn't use a check chain on a baby puppy (have used them on my older dogs in the past) - I much prefer martingales once the pups get old enough to wear a training collar :D http://www.k9force.net/index.html?row2col2=mart.html

Well, the guy came to remove the seed pods but ended up cutting down the worst 'dropping' tree anyway so now we've gotten rid of the worst of it

If I had a female I would always get a male - I would always go for the opposite sex. That and I love my boy dogs girls can be right bitches

That's exciting! Mum was contacting a tree remover today - even if its too exxy he can still cut down the branches with the seeds.

For male names I like: - Aslan (the lion from Chronicles of Narnia) - Scotch - Apache - Balto - Boris - Bandit - and heaps more I can't be bothered listing :D All these years later and I still love Micha's name. A lot of people pronounce it "mee-sha" and I always have to correct them because its "MISH-ah" which sounds very different (to me anyway!).

Ditto. I prefer to have them on left for the same reason (habit).

My sibe learnt how to back out of his harness :D For the very reason you mentioned, we only ever walk ours on a martingale collar/limited slip collar - they are impossibe for a dog to back out of. They are great! I also found Micha pulls a lot when wearing his harness, but not on the martingale.

Thanks everyone. We have had some of the trees removed (had them both in the front and back yard) and it cost almost $1000 to get about four chopped down We definitely plan to cut the rest down but unfortunately it is not an option in the short term. We even bought one of those hand held extended chopping tools and it wasn't strong enough to cut through the stalk... will find out about hiring a better one. I didn't even think of blockages as I didn't realise the dogs were actually eating the seeds I thought they had been chewing off the orange bits and leaving the rest (have found all the excess seeds lying around their beds!)

We have a heap of cocus palms (assuming that is what they are??) in our back yard and at the moment they are dropping 100s of little orange fruits/seeds. The dogs are constantly eating the orange part and occassionally the seeds (as I have recently discovered). I've not noticed any bad reaction (have been eating them for months) but last night Daisy had diarrohea and it contained a couple of little seeds from the palm trees. Are the little orange seeds the palm trees drop dangerous or poisonous for dogs? I assumed they weren't as all the dogs have been chewing them with no obvious reaction but after last night I'm now not so sure. TIA

I like the sound of "Mandela"! Congrats on your pup Erny, he is GORGEOUS You almost can't believe he's naughty when you see those cute pics (almost )

PMSL That's right, we should never, ever, ever share our experiences unless they are happy because god knows no-one one ever learns from their mistakes. Thanks for the laugh, Coco

She posted about having two puppies and doing so on a public forum invites a range of comments. People aren't posting to argue with the OP for any reason other than concern for the puppies involved. ETA: It only takes a brief looking in this sub-forum to gauge how many difficulties (unexpected and expected) people have with their pups.

When posting on a public forum asking for advice, particularly on a forum this size, you may sometimes get replies that you do not agree with, or advice that is not what you want to hear. Caz is a well respected member here who is sharing her experience with you. No need to get narky just because you don't agree with it - that's what forums are for (sharing opinion). Good luck with your two new pups, you're going to need it with two naughty lab puppies! I hope it all works out for you.

Oh I totally agree that the way the owner handles the pups experiences is hugely important. But for me, when I have pups, I am particularly paranoid in the 12-16 week fear period that I do everything I can to make the pup's experiences with other dogs good experiences, all the while trying to socialise them properly as much as possible.

Remember at this age it can sometimes only take one negative experience with another dog for your pup to have serious issues for the rest of its life. I was very careful about where I took my beagle to socialise her - I would set up my own puppy play date with dogs I knew and trusted, instead of going to the dog park for a free for all, I would take her to obedience school so she could learn to interact around other dogs in a polite and well mannered way, and would take her out and about to various places - remember socialisation is not just about playing with other dogs, but interacting with new people and having new experiences. We'd take Daisy to the farmers markets, down to the local corner shop, on short walks around the neighborhood and would encourage people to pat her and meet her (she would have to sit before getting any attention though). It can be tempting to take them into the dog park but like I said, especially at this age, it takes one bad experience to cause serious behavioral issues. I stupidly let Daisy in the dog park only yesterday to have a run - there was only one other dog in there, and it was at the other end playing fetch with its owner. I let Daisy have a run, I gave her the recall command, and as she was running over to me, the other dog dropped its ball, grabbed her around the neck and pushed her into the ground. Not a serious incident, and luckily Daisy as an adult has a nice stable temperament - but enough to damage a pup's confidence around other dogs.

Relatively. She has bad back legs, but apart from that, she is fit and healthy for her age. ETA: Will definitely ask the vet about removing teeth. There were no rotten teeth a few months ago the last time she was at the vet, but will definitely get her thoroughly checked over.

Yeah I wasn't sure it would, but I thought I'd ask in case there is much we can do with diet to help! I have been reading about Eagle Pack Holistic and although its more exxy than RC I have been thinking of trying Cherry bean on it to give her something a bit better quality.

I've never thought of lamb ribs before! Might be good for her to chew on something a little bit smaller other than chicken bones. Thanks for the tip about anal glands, I will ask the vet about all this when we go in the next week or two. I was just wondering if there was something I could do with her diet, that could possibly help stinky breath.

Cherry our little SWF is nearing ten years of age. She has always had skin problems, with terrible rash, hot spots etc - last year I changed her over to Royal Canin dried food and she is thriving, and is looking better than ever. She has a sensitive tummy and used to vomit a lot but this has stopped when she went on RC. She also gets some raw chicken bones but is a very, very picky eater and won't eat any bone bigger than a small chicken wing (anything bigger she will run away and hide, but won't really eat). Anyway, her breath is terribly stinky. I have asked the vet about it before, but have not been able to find anything wrong that would indicate smelly breath. I have been thinking of changing her over to a higher quality dried food like Eagle Pack holistic to see if this would help her smelly breath?? All my animals eat RC, but with Cherry's smelly breath I have been looking at other avenues to test and see if there is any improvement. I am going to take her to the vet in the next couple of weeks just for a general checkup and I will again get the vet to check out her stinky breath. But for the mean time - with her sensitive tummy, proneness to rashes and mature age - what would be the best Eagle Pack to try her on? Anything other diet recommendations?

I've never fed puppy milk as part of the normal diet, I don't think it has anything in it that I can't give through raw food or good quality dry - when Daisy was a baby puppy, I would feed her some raw mince meat (chicken or beef) mixed with some dried food (we feed Royal Canin). I was always told puppy milk is a waste of money (ok for a treat but not as normal diet - have no idea if this is correct or not, happy to be proven wrong!) ETA: We fed three times a day and would also give her some chicken necks or a chicken wing cut in half.

Well done on making some progress!! Daisy my beagle was a total evil nutter at that age. She barked heaps, got bored very easily (despite having other dogs here although I do think having my Sibe around for her to play with helped A LOT) and needed a lot of mental and physical stimulation daily. Now she is nearing two years of age, she has come along in leaps and bounds. My other two dogs were no where near as challenging as Daisy, so it was hard for me initially to wrap my head around training her differently (as a different breed to my others, having different needs and different drive etc). I think beagles go through their most evil period in the 6-12 month age gap :D

Not at the moment, its way too cold at night for some people I train at Metro with Daisy and occassionally Micha. For general obedience training and some socialisation its great. We have been training there for about 18 months now, Daisy thoroughly enjoys it and has really improved over the time we have been training there