Gayle.

I love the head collar, but my dog hates it so I don't use it much any more. I just couldn't get control over him with a plain collar and lead, the head collar at least gave me immediate control, so I would use positive reinforcement, then went to a webbing training collar which was absolutely useless. Now I use a correction collar (check chain) and it's wonderful. I have a means to correct him without hurting him amd with a collar that he likes to wear. For a leisurely stroll or a day out with the dog where I want control but don't want to be continually correcting him, I use a Sporn harness. It's comfortable for him and he can't pull my arm off.

Until you get used to the camera and it's various settings, use Program mode. This allows you to control the ISO (lower for bright conditions, high for dark/low light), the flash, the focus priority and the metering, but the camera takes care of the aperture and shutter speed. You can see the selected aperture and shutter speed in the viewfinder and adjust the ISO to suit.

Years ago, I got a pup from the Lost Dogs Home that had shocking diarroeah. The vet at the dogs home said it just needed worming and sent me home with some kind of puppy all-wormer. A week later she still had the runs and I took her to a local vet who gave me some antibiotics for her. A week later and a repeat visit to the vet she STILL had the runs and I was very worried. My dad, who bred and trained racing greyhounds came and looked at her one day and said she had hookworm. He gave her some stuff for hookworm and a day later, she didn't have the runs. And was fine from there on.

My Aussie Shepherd pup has lots of nice, soft, comfortable sleeping spots to choose from......he prefers the floorboards in our bedroom. He even pulled out the rug I put there for him, and laid on the boards where it had been.

BARF isn't a brand name, it's a method of feeding your animals. On this forum BARF stands for Biologically Approved Raw Food, on others it stands for Bones and Raw Food, or the original (tongue in cheek) meaning.....Born Again Raw Feeders. It just means feeding your pet raw foods as opposed to commercial packaged food.

My Aussie Shepherd pup never got lunch from 11 weeks of age because we were at work during the day and it was too far to come home. Instead, he'd have breakfast at around 7.30am, dinner as soon as we got home around 5.30pm, then "supper" just before bedtime at about 10pm. Breakfast was (and still is) Eagle Pack kibble, with or without tinned sardines, or some brisket bones. Dinner was a raw meat, egg, cheese, vege mix which he still gets. Supper was a couple of chicken necks, a wing or two and a puppy biscuit. That worked well for us and gradually I increased the time before he got dinner and cut down supper til he was only having 2 meals a day.

A tiny piece of tinned sardine, some grated zucchini and carrot, cooked egg yolk (add the white when he's older), grated cheese, cottage cheese, brown rice, rolled oats, brisket bones, grated apple and pear, tinned fruit (pears, peaches etc), chicken liver. Just add little bits at a time and see how he goes with them. If he doesn't like it, don't give it to him again but a dog with a varied diet is easy to take places and it's also good for them.

I make my own dog food, although I don't have a set recipe. The base is raw mince (beef, lamb, chicken, roo or whatever is on special and usually a combo of 2 or 3), porridge oats, raw vegetable mush and cooked eggs. Additions are yoghurt, grated cheese, cottage cheese, grated fruit, tinned mackerel, tinned asparagus, chicken livers, fish oil. I just buy a selection of ingredients and mix them together....the ratio would be about 4kgs of raw meat to 1kg of extras. Dogs also get raw meaty bones, chicken necks and pieces, Eagle Pack holistic kibble and tinned sardines. Like Cavnrott, the only dog roll I would use is Ecopet.....my dogs like it and it's good to have one or two in the freezer for those times I run out of other stuff. Making your own is probably not cheaper than buying commercially made pet food, but at least you know what's in it and can control what your dog eats.

I'd settle for one that actually shows up! Check out your local community dog club for puppy socialising. Even if they don't have puppy classes there, they might be able to recommend one for you. If they do have puppy classes, they might very well be cheap and fun. We started off doing puppy obedience at the local club, now we've graduated to beginners class and it's enormous fun.

My 6 1/2 month old Aussie Shepherd pup has always had a home made diet supplemented by Eagle Pack large puppy kibble. I make up bags of food each weekend and freeze them for use during the week. The basis of his diet consits of raw meat (beef, chicken, lamb) and bones. I try and make up packs of food with a variety of ingredients, working on the principle that variety is more important than exact quantities. I don't add any vitamins or minerals, but wonder if I should be doing so, in case he's missing out on something. The packs of food I make up would consist of raw mince beef, chopped chicken necks or chopped lamb chunks with bones mixed up oatmeal, raw egg yolk, cooked egg white and grated veges (carrots, bok choy, zuchinni etc). Then I add a few of the following....... Grated cheese Cottage cheese Natural yoghurt Grated apple and pear Tinned mackerel Cod liver oil Honey (not very much and not often but he loves it) Tinned spinach So a meal would consist of a basic mix PLUS maybe yoghurt and fruit....or grated cheese and mackerel......or cottage cheese, spinach and cod liver oil. He doesn't get every ingredient every week, but he does get the basic mixture almost every evening with at least two of the other ingredients. His breakfast is either some raw meaty bones or a bowl of Eagle Pack kibble topped with tinned sardines. Is he missing out on anything and should I be adding something else to his diet? He looks fantastic....glossy coat, bright eyes, loads of energy and he doesn't have a doggy smell. Very, very occasionally he might get a meal of "doggy takeout".......4 Legs meaty balls, or Ecopet dog roll. But as I build up a supply of frozen packs for him I have less need to buy ready made dinner for him. Any suggestions as to additives to his diet would be gratefully considered and even some ideas for extra ingredients.

When we brought Benson home, he was 11 weeks old and we both had to go to work a couple of days later. I gave him breakfast when we had ours, dinner when I got home from work (around 6pm) and a late night "snack" of a chicken wing, a small meaty bone or a couple of puppy biscuits about 1/2 hour before bed. Eventually I mived dinner to a little later and cut out the snack.

I have a similar problem...my very boisterous 6 1/2 month old Aussie Shepherd boy loves to leap around people....he doesn't touch them, just runs to them and bounces around them in big high leaps, which is enough to scare the bejeezus out of little kids. I have started training in a way I think might work. This is what I'm doing....and I'll keep you posted on how we;re going. Last week I bought a loud squeaky toy....a different shape, texture and colour to anything he owns. I took him to a park at a time of day I knew we'd be alone and let him off the lead. He chased a frisbee, which is what we always do, but this time....instead of just calling him to come back with it, I squeaked the toy, waved it madly while I called his name and asked him to come to me. It got his attention every time and he came running. When he got to me, he'd drop the frisbee and I'd show him the toy, squeaking it and letting him have a sniff.....then put it away. He got to sniff it a few times, I let him mouth it once.......and when we got home I put it where he could see it but not reach it. And he tried......oh my goodness, how he tried! That squeaky toy is now the Holy Grail! The toy will now come everywhere with us, but he'll not be allowed to do more than sniff or lick it.....it's to be very desirable but unattainable. Combined with the toy, I'm using some yummy treats. I hope this works, but in the meantime I'm being very careful about where I let him off the leash.

Name: Benson Sex: Male Date of birth: 2.03.07 Age: 6 1/2 months old Colour: Black tri-colour Breed: Australian Shepherd Hobbies: Playing war games (digging trenches in the backyard), haring around with our 12yo Lhasa Apso. Loves: Food, his mum pigs ears, his squeaky toys, his frisbee, going in the car and our Maine Coon cat. Hates: Being made to wait for his dinner. Aged 10 weeks, the day we first met him. We brought him home the following week. Aged 3 months, his first trip to the beach. Aged 5 months, with his favourite toy. Aged 6 months....a handsome young lad who is the light of my life.

How special was Jess.....and how special are you, Kaz! That's a lovely story, you made the old girls life happy right up to the very end.

That sounds a HUGE amount for a little dog. My little dog would get about 3/4 of a cup of food each day. She's not a big eater but puts on weight easily.

My dog doesn't see our three cats as prey, he sees them as "play!" And he loves to play with them, especially our Burmese male. The two of them run around like a pair of hoons. He's also in love with our Maine Coon female, he loves to lick her ears and she lets him. She used to hiss at him but now she just lays there. Cats have some definite advantages over the dogs....they are faster, sharper and can jump a lot higher.

Just because she can hold on all night, it doesn't mean she can hold on all day. At night she's asleep and he bladder will go into "night-mode" the same as a human bladder....it will concentrate the output so she can hang on longer. But during the day, she is awake, eating, drinking, playing and moving around so she won't be able to hang on for 8 hours.

I have a similar problem, although mine jumps around them, not on them. It frightens kids, even though he doesn't touch them (he's trying to herd them). My solution is to not let him off the lead where there's strangers, and if he jumps up while on the lead (and he has done this from time to time) give him a good telling off, and when he ignores strangers as we walk by, give plenty of positive reinforcement. My next step will be to find a couple of kids willing and confident enough to be test pilots, let him off the lead near them and start training him NOT to jump and praising when he doesn't. I need to find fairly small kids though......my youngest is 13 and he doesn't jump around her and her friends, but he does do it with smaller kids. My negative reinforcement is to lean over him (I'm not very tall, so the higher I can get the better), grab the hair/skin either side of his neck, get in his face and use a BIG DEEP VOICE and tell him NOOOOOOOO!!!!! BAD BOY!!!!!!!!!!! It works cos he usually drops on his belly and looks at me with a sorry expression and acts very submissive. My boy is a 6 month old Aussie Shepherd, usually quite well behaved but rather bossy if he's allowed to be (I don't allow him to be the boss at all!)

I brought mine home in a PP40 carrier. Now he wears a harness which is clipped to a seatbelt in the backseat. He loves coming in the car with me.

....cos this morning we have our graduation from puppy class at the local dog obedience club, and I wanted him to look gorgeous. And he did! My husband put him outside this morning and I've just taken his breakfast out to him. He no longer looks gorgeous. His lovely clean white feet are now coated with black sticky mud. The pretty copper coloured hair on his legs is also black. His shiny, glossy, silky coat has a thick layer of dirt and mud through it. The little devil decided this morning was the perfect morning to become a backhoe and he's excavated a huge hole under the hydrangeas. Gawd, I hope it will all brush out, cos we don't have time for another bath.

My Aussie had a patch of dandruff on his rump for a while. I started adding some tinned sardines to his diet (which is mostly raw, veges, eggs, cheese, oatmeal and Eagle Pack large puppy kibble) and within a few weeks, the dandruff was gone and his adult coat is now coming through very soft, silky and glossy.

The condition of a dogs coat is a reflection of it's diet. My 6 month old puppy has a gorgeous thick, glossy coat, I feed him raw meat and bones, raw vegetable pulp, oatmeal, cooked eggs, natural yoghurt, cheese, sardines and Eaglepack puppy kibble. He has the kibble for breakfast most days, either with or without a topping of sardines, then a mixture of raw meat and other ingredients for dinner. He gets a bone to chew during the day every now and then. At 10 weeks, she is probably a bit young for the gentle leader, although they are fantastic for older puppies who don't mind their manners when on the lead. We use a gentle leader for training as Benson nearly pulls my arm off otherwise. As soon as the gentle leader goes on, he stops pulling and starts concentrating.

I use those Schmacko's straps, broken up into smaller pieces......I like having one in my pocket just to suprise him with when he does something good. Also my dog goes nuts over the dry food my cats eat....Hills Science Diet Oral Care. It's big pieces and he loves it so a few pieces here and there makes a nice change.

My Aussie Shepherd puppy is 5 months and 3 weeks old too. I walk him about the same....10 minutes to the park, he runs around and chases a frisbee for a while and we do some obedience training, then walk home again. Today we went for a leisurely 45 minute stroll and that seemed to tire him out more than the park does. We didn't walk fast....I had him in his Sporn harness, cos he pulls a lot.....and I just let him sniff everything and have a good time on the walk and the only obedience I expected was to sit at kerbs and not yank my arm off. He was a very good boy and we both enjoyed the walk.

Is there a community obedience club in your area? I joined my local one and it's fantastic fun. We're currently in the puppy class, which is mostly about socialising (while on leads), being nice on a lead and some very basic commands. The club will be there as long as I want it......I can go right through to trialling in obedience, agility, tracking etc if I want to....or I can just go until my puppy learns a level of obedience that I'm happy with. We're in it for the long haul though.......Saturday mornings are so much fun now! The best thing about being in a club is you can go at your own pace.....there's no set "course" you need to complete and if you miss a class every now and then, it's no matter and you're not wasting money. There are also a lot of very experienced people on hand.....not professional dog trainers, but people like you and me who have dogs and have trained them to a high level. And it's very reasonably priced. I paid an annual subscription (under $100) which included the whole family and the classes are a gold coin donation. We have our first graduation in a few weeks, and that promises to be a fun day with a BBQ lunch put on by the club.