Gayle.

I was having trouble keeping Dusty's weight down on one meal a day, so I moved both dogs to two meals....a small brekkie (a chicken drumstick or a small piece of brisket) then a larger evening meal (raw meaty bones, mince, eggs and vegies or kibble and sardines) after their evening exercise. Since then, Dusty has lost her spare tyre and she is now lean and fit with a lovely slender waist and an easily felt spine. My vet suggested the small breakfast to get her metabolism moving, and it seems to have worked. Plus the dogs are much happier being fed morning and night.

No matter that the pup was strong and healthy, the breeder broke the code of conduct of his governing canine council in selling the pup at that age. Registered breeders have a code of conduct (or ethics) they have to abide by, and which they promise to abide by when they become registered.

A single feed won't hurt either cats or dogs (eating cat food). It's when they're fed a steady diet that the problems occur.

I have got an Australian Shepherd girl that's not the slightest bit interested in balls, but will chase a frisbee all day! She's also not fussed on walks.....she walks beautifully on the leash, trots very nicely alongside of me but I can tell she's not at all interested in "going for a walk" for the sake of it. My boy dog though, he just LOVES a walk....he sniffs and he looks at stuff and the whole world is interesting to him. He likes the frisbee, he likes a ball, he LOVES rope toys though and will bring them and lay them on our laps in the hope of a good game of tug. They are all different and even dogs that live together and play all day together like different things. Your lovely girl will let you know what she likes soon enough. Have fun with her!

You might be surprised. A friend of mine says the same thing and yet I can always pick her photos out of a big bunch of others. She does have a definite style (not only of taking the photos but also in processing them) and it comes through whether it's portrait, landscape, still life etc.

I'd like to add to this: because I believe it's more than just enforcing rules. It's also about keeping your pack safe from harm, providing warmth and comfort for them, watching out for them and keeping their stress levels low. If a leader does all of those things, the pack don't need to make their own decisions because they can be confident and comfortable that the correct decisions are being made for them. Leadership is a "whole" thing....not just one area of dog ownership.

You can get something similar from Challenge Dog Supplies in Sydney. It's called an Oster Undercoat Rake and it's similar to a Mars Coat King with wider spaced blades. The blades are blunt and only grip the downy undercoat and remove it, they don't cut or tear the topcoat.

Don't mind the odd blade of grass but I'm a bit over flowers and bees. But for macro photography I would love, love, love to try my hand at tiny mechanics one day.....old watch interiors, tiny wind-up mechanisms etc.

Haha....that's one of the reasons to learn the tech stuff and why hanging out on forums is a good thing.....til your brain goes into total overload. I can think about how I want my photo to turn out, then make it happen. Both of the portraits I posted links to were designed....I knew exactly what I wanted and I made the picture happen. They were both taken for a reason (I needed them to enter in photo competitions) and the reason forced my hand and my brain into thinking about what I wanted and how to make it happen.

I actually prefer landscapes, they don't crack the shits and walk off when you ask them to look nice instead of looking sulky.

Here you go. Big crop to get down to the serious stuff. Photography is about leaving things out of the frame, I've simply cropped out the superfluos stuff and left the important stuff.......the raw emotion. Also did a bit of a contrast adjustment and sharpened it slightly.

Can I have your permission to download it and have a bit of a play with it, then upload an edited version? I'd like to show you what might be done with a very simple edit.

This is what I used to be like. I hung out on photography forums and got very caught up in the quest for perfection. I learned a lot, but the most valuable lesson I learned is that a good shot doesn't have to be perfect and quite often, a perfect shot is very boring. I stopped visiting the forums and started to enjoy my photography more.

For portraits, I like posed shots better than candid.....usually. And I like the subject to know they're having their photo taken because I like eye contact with the camera. These are my two favourite portraits, both posed, both won awards. http://www.shot2shot.com/family/angle4.jpg http://www.pbase.com/gayleknowles/image/61416471

With a hydrobath, you'd be lucky to use two buckets of water. I use the one at the car wash, I believe they use 100% recycled water in them. I wash my dogs weekly or fortnightly, depends on how much time I have. No guilt here and lovely clean dogs with good skin and coats.

I'll just jump in line to have Miss Kinta. She can hide amongst the other black tri failures here! LOL!

Page 107 in the manual. It's not a separate button, it's in the menu on the screen.

Do you use it? I had a bit of a play with it when I got my 40D but have never actually taken a photo using the live view. I like the bigger viewfinder of the 40D.....I haven't tried the 400D but the viewfinder of the 350D was like a tiny tunnel......very difficult to see through. And extra frames per second is fantastic, specially for fast moving dogs. Dogsdot, go to a camera store and hold both of them. You'll be very surprised by the difference in how they feel, and that can be the clincher for a lot of people.

Take a look HERE at a side by side comparison, but also go and look at both of them side by side in a shop. On paper, they look similar, in your hand they are very different. The 400D is a nice camera, an entry level build, quite small to hold, light and mostly plastic. The 40D is heavier, larger, more metal, better quality finish and much more substantial in the hand.

My loyalties lie with Canon, and that's because they were the first company to come out with a sub-$2000 DSLR body (300D) which I purchased shortly after it was released. It was pretty damn good for it's day and I learned a lot with that camera. While I owned it, I bought various lenses, and began to build up a nice collection. The body was sold along with the original kit lens, and I've had various other Canon bodies, but the whole time I've been refining my lens collection. Had Nikon come out with the first "cheap" DSLR, my loyalties would probably be with them.

Start experimenting with the settings, learn to use AV and TV modes (aperture value, and time value). Experiment with different perspectives....get down low, get up high, get close up and use the widest angle to distort the view. Learn what your camera can do, then push it to it's limits.

Australian Shepherds, cos they're clever AND pretty!

Eagle Pack Holistic. Dogs looked good, outflow was minimal and well formed, somewhat expensive but the dogs liked it. Nutrience. Dogs loved it, condition didn't change, outflow was same as above. Pro Plan. Dogs were so-so about it but ate it. Dusty put on weight, no change in outflow. Pro Plan Selects. Dogs would walk over hot coals for it. Outflow is minimal. Dusty still gets fat but now I feed her less. They look fabulous. Hard to come by though as not many places stock it. I have fed the following as training treats only: Good-o's, Optimum, Beneful. Optimum is the only one of those I would consider as a larger part of their diet, but they like the variety of the others and don't get enugh to make a difference. My number one choice would be Pro Plan Selects, followed by Eagle Pack Holistic.

I just adore that lens. I had the f1.8, it was nice, but lasted a bit longer than the warranty (it stopped auto focussing) so when I won some money in a photo competition, I bought the f1.4 and fell in love.

Both mine are black (17-40mm f4 and 200mm f2.8) and I love that they are unobtrusive. My husband has a 70-200mm f4 lens and it's white, and I just duck for cover when he's with me and got that damn thing on his camera. Neither of mine are very heavy and I never use a monopod.