B-Q

My mum had a boxer/bull terrier girl that cleared a fence that must've been atleast 8" tall, but i was young, i'll hqave to check with my dad, he built it. She just sailed over after a ball. i dunno what to use under the jump, i'm thinking stuff like pillows could be too unstable and might cause more harm then good. I wanna see how high he can jump. He's got a lot better, when he was young, he was a terrific jumped, he just had no direction. lol

Busters only about 50cm at the shoulder, but he can easily clear 3.5ft or more. ( i havn't tried any higher because i don't want him hurting his feet) he won't attempt soemthing unless he thinks he can clear it. Mac is about 38cm at the shoulder and jumps through the 3ft windows. But agian, we havn't been pushing it much high incase she hurts herslelf so in an agility trial, what height would they be jumping? and what could i put ot he other side of a jump to make it safer for themto jumper higher jumps?

i was gonna teach buster bow, i put my arm udner him (which i saw somewhere) and ask him to drop. funniest thing i've ever seen, he whinged for a while then tried to lie down on his side (i don't know) so i still had his backend and his front end was sideways on the ground. lol! sorry, its not helpful but it cracks me up

thanks, i've got the name of a good behaviourist in my area that i plan on going to see very soon, (now that i can't make it to NT for a holiday i'm free to start job hunting 2moro so hopefully i'll have the money for it in a couple of weeks) i've been relaly payikng attention to him, he can meet other dogs through our fence and relaly like them, he gets on relaly well with dogs he's introduced to inside our yard but as soon as he's outside i think he goes into his "attack is the best form of defence" mode. this also includes the car. i'm very excited about talking to a good trainer and working this out wiht him though. he's a smart dog but i think he's a bit freaked out. i can see a lot of things i can work on already at home to increase his trust that i'm the boss and he doesn't have to wrry. I'll start things like making him wait till i'm settled in bed before he can jump up, wait for him food and a lot of work on "heal" so that he isn't out front checking things out before me.

okay, at home buster has good food drive if he's a bit hungry and good toy drive if i can stir him up enough. although these can never compete with his drive to hate other dogs and his drive to chase small furry animals. how many more things are there that can outdo that? outside te yard he's got little to no interest in food or toys. yesterday we went to the vet to get sophie her 3rd injectio and harry his 1st for their hip pain. i took buster too weight him. i took him in when no dogs were around. i walked him over the scale, he jumped on, i asked him to sit and he slammed his bum down as fast as he could. he was excited and there was nothing overly stressfull around so he was really well behaved. i took him back out, opened the tray and sat in the back with him. a man pulled up and was taking his old callte dog inside. ALl busters concentration was gone. he's was all whining and no listening. i sat back in under the hood of the tray and was going to work on "focussing" him because i'd been [racticing earlier at home and he was really responsive. i could barley get hois attention at all "buster" to him ment "whine relaly loud" i finally got him to turn around and "focus" ment jump on my lap, sit down, turn around and whine at the vets door again. I don't get him, i've been working on certain distractions, he can focus well at home with no distraction, he can also do it when our other dogs are barking at something with no problem. outside he can do it with dogs barking off in the distance or where he can't see them but the minute he notices a dog around anywhere nearly all concentration is gone. o how many more drives are there that i can try?

at the moment i'm mainly interested in training buster for agility. later on i really want to get into flyball, lure coursing, endurance, sledding (havn't looked into that), herding, obediance and tracking (hope to do that wiht buster also) but I want to get my head around agility before i venture off to train for anything else, still, i think i'll try anything once. I think agility's gotta be my favourite so far though

i think it can be poisonous, but not sure it whate doses. our dogs have copped their fair share of chocolate (just this easter mac got into all the easter eggs and had a good feast) but she was fine. my mums ex took great delight in feeding most of our good human food to the dogs, once he fed them nearly 2L of choclate milk in a day. I was pretty angry because of how long it took me to talk mum into buying it and how bad i guessed it was for them, i go out to have some and these a dribble left in the bottom. when we have like MnM's or soemthing they dogs tend to get a couple, not one problem yet but i wouldn't go giving it to them all the time.

I've noticed Buster is getting bigger, we've never really monitored what our dogs eat but i thought maybe i should take more notice of whats Busters eating. he's not getting relaly fat, he was getting pretty solid but now i've noticed he's definetly wider then he used to be. I'm gonna up his excercise to but was wondering if theres anywya i could figure out exactly how much he shoudl be eating. he's not a huge eater as it is, raw meat kinda irks him but he gets plenty of it still. his diet varies. some nights its about 400g mince cooked up with vegies etc other nights they get 1.5kg bag chicken necks split between the 4 of them then a cup of biscuits. other nights they'll have 2-3 drumsticks each and some biscuits if their still hungry. last night the other dogs had chicken wings, but buster refused to touch it so he got a couple of cups of biscuits, some raw cat mince and some left over corned beef so yeah, they basically get whatever dog food we have in the fridge for them that night. But he's definetly getting bigger, he's losing that abdominal slope thing that goes form his chest to his hips, its becoming less noticeable and he's still solid and muscly but he's considerably wider then i think he should be.

your sacrifice helped him be free. he was very ucky RIP big man

thasta awesome, we're building one like... this week probably, wondering how we would make it though. mind if i steal your idea?

hey cassiepeia, your still in my thoughts. thought i'd let you know i havn't fogotten you. Jesse was such a lucky boy to find you.

i'm a big fan of shutzhund. i looked into a couple of times just for intereests sake and read that a dog must be extensivley tested and very obediant and stable before they have a cahnce at actually learning any controlled protection work. one thing i was thinking about the other day, if a dog attacks a person attempting to harm their owner then counted as a dangerous dog because they've attacked soemone? if so, if a shutzhund trained dog protects their owner in the same manner, is this dog still seen as "dangerous" eventhough they are highly trained? i reall think that the people not involved in schutz that believe its a bad sport that encourages dogs to attack people need to spend some time looking at just how much training goes into a succesful schutz dog. i have been worried about how it will effect BSL. its gotta be one of the most difficult dog sports to do well in and i fully respect the people that do

i think mac woudl love it, it would give her a vent for her energy to just let her bolt like that.

congrats, i've been working on rollover for a few weeks with buster now. lol he can pick up some tricks in 20 minutes but he's struggling with this one.

actually i've been wondering about that to. my mums not so sure about lure coursing because she thinks it might increase a dogs prey drive. we wouldn't put harry in it, eventhough he loves to run. he doesn't need to be put in full drive then sent out on his own. we think mac would like it though, she has huge energy levels and she can easily focus on something if its moving fast enough for her.

my sister wants to get mac into flyball. she's very clever. in just 2 days we taught her when we let her go, she runs through the star pickets, over two jumps, grabs the ball off the low aframe we built then jumps back. but proper training would be great, i reckon she would be a great asset to any team, she's very fast, agile, driven and clever. she's a bit skittish and afraid around other dogs but think she would be fine once introduced properly and she knew them. but once she's confident she's hugley rough when playing, she can hit harry when she's running and just send him flyuing and he weighs twice as much as her. so we're looking for soemwhere she can train

i taught buster to scratch on doors to ask to go through. but in the last house i didn't want him wrecking the back of my bedroom door asking to go out when mum got up to walk harry. so with inside doors like that i wouldhang a sheet over it before i closed it. i dunno, i'd say ignoring her till she stops would be the best. but you don't want the door getting wrecked. so maybe taping some cardboard over it untill she learns. also train her to learn another trigger to get your attention, whether its a quick bark or a bell or soemthing. and i'd say, even getting her to sit before you let her out might only reinforce it. she scratches, you jump up and get her to sit then she's free to go out.

i'm also looking for a flyball box, my sister wants to buy one for training mac. prefer near sunshine coast or brisbane

been working on his weaves for a few months now. today he got it. i noticed he was actually understanding he idea that he had to weave through the poles so i moved them right in a straight line and he got it! i'm so proud. there was a few times when i thought he was going backwards but he got it.

thanks, we have a fair few things. we got told hto feed her sardines. we bought some stuff you rub into her back. it smells but it helps. she's gotta go to the vet this week as well, she's got some badly broken front canines

i kinda just need to post, i'm worried about sophie. she's only 9, has bad arthritis and is on painkillers everyday for the rest of her life. just recetnly she's developed an internal lump we can see in her side. its not big, but i'm scared. plus we noticed today she looks too thin, you can see her ribs slightly and her backbone a bit. i'm frightened, when we lost daisy, it was unexpected. but i can't see sophie being around at age 20. she has so many health problems for a dog that isn't really that old. mums said it might be cancer i still remember the day we bought her, there were only 2 littermates left. the other girl was black, she was a bit skittish and almost snappy. we knew sophie would have bad hips and skin problems from the moment we saw her but we figured she may as well get a great loving family for however long she was around. on the way home in the car she just sat there with her head on my lap. we got her home, we sat her in the backyard, she just sat there. thought she might get burnt after a couple of hours so we moved her to the shade (actually picking her up and carrying her) that night we carried her inside. she was so timid, didn't come looking for human attention, when she came inside she's skulk through frightened. but she really came out. 9 years on you can't keep her out of the house without a fight. she demands attention when she wants it and she's not nervous of other people at all. i can't believe how lucky we were to have such a special dog come to us. i'm so frightened she might not be around for too much longer.

i taught buster the "leave it command" he's pretty reliable with it but... when he smells soemthing dead he ignores my yells and screams and running madly at him waving my arms and proceeds to roll in it, over and over and over again...

awesome, buster heals well (not trial well but right beside me) off leash but on leash he wants to always be 3 metres in front. i'll start working harder on it tomorow

okay, so you see in obediance comps. the heel, the dog is right in close to owner, almost leaning on them, staring up. the owner has they're hand above the dogs head at their hip. how do you train that?

thats pretty inspiring. sometimes i think i'll never get past backyard training with Buster. that gives me hope.