Gayle.

We use the same command, we taught Benson by having him drop, then gently pushed him onto his side and held his head down at the same time giving the command "Bang!" It didn't take long for him to figure it out. It sounds like you've taught your boy to drop, then rollover as an extension of the drop, so now he thinks that's what he's supposed to do. Try going back to a basic drop, and just have him do that for a while. Then introduce the play dead as a definite seperate exercise.

Adding my brag to this thread seeing as it will probably be our only brag for the year. Benson and I competed in the East Gippsland Dog Obedience Club's annual endurance trial and he gained his title, so he's now known as Hevnsent Darktown Strutter ET. It was the most fun you could ever have a cold and overcast winter morning and I can't wait to do it again next year with Dusty!

I used the same form I use for obedience trials. I sent it off with a self addressed envelope, the secretary sent back the vet certificate which we had completed last week, then we took it with us today and gave it to the vet during the pre-trial check.

Done and dusted. My boy is now to be known as Hevnsent Darktown Strutter ET. It was an awesome ride, we had a fabulous time and he was the best boy in the world. I am very proud of him!

ROFL! If she has the letters CCD after her name, then you're doing a LOT better than Benson and I are. I have pretty much retired him from obedience trialling as the competitive dog world isn't quite ready for Bensons brand of obedience. It was something along the lines of....how many shades of red can the handler go and how far would she like to sink into the ground. But in true Benson style, he did it all with a big happy smile and a waggy tail!

Congrats to the new ET'ers! Awesome stuff. Ours is next Saturday, I hope the weather is as lovely as this weekend.

The Bush's stuff doesn't even look like meat once you take the plastic wrap off.....it looks more like blood soaked bits of polystyrene. I bought it once and ended up mixing it with chicken and beef mince, veges, eggs, cheese etc....the usual mix I make up for the dogs, It got rid of the Bush's and made the mince mixture go a bit further but I've never bought it again. Rubbish. It all comes from the same abbattiors.....there's absolutely no difference in the carcasses. Some are delivered to the butchers shops, other are delivered to supermarkets to be butchered and packaged for their meat departments.

I bought myself a beautiful bike for Christmas last year and requested the original seat be changed for something really comfortable. The guy at the bike shop recommended a lovely big squashy gel-filled seat, and it's fantastic. We have been training since Christmas, although less now since daylight savings has stopped. The longest we've been in one ride was about 17 kms, and Benson wanted to chase a frisbee afterwards! My bum wasn't one bit sore after tha ride, but my husband who has a much cheaper (K Mart) bike and a standard cheap seat didn't fare quite so well. We will keep up the riding afterwards because I'll then be training Dusty for her ET next year and also because the dogs and I really love it. It has totally surprised me how much I enjoy bike riding, and also how much fun it is riding with your dog alongside you. It's very much a bonding exercise and requires total trust on both sides.....me trusting that he won't pull me off the bike, and him trusting that I'll maintain a speed he can run at and that I'll protect him from anything that could hurt him.

My guys love Uncle Albers, and it was the end of an itchy Benson when I started him on it. They look fabulous with their coats the best they've ever been. They have mostly raw but 1-2 meals a week of Uncle Albers.

How is everyone going? Anyone got their ET title yet? Ours is less than 2 weeks away, I've booked the vet appointment for this Wednesday and we're raring to go. We've been out today and done a 13km ride, Benson still had heaps of energy left so 20 kms is gonna be easy-peasy for him. I can't wait! It's a very early start.....7am check in then the obedience tests start at 7.30am and the ET at 8am. There are 2 others from my obedience club doing it too, so we'll be cheering each other on.

Be careful buying a slicker brush....a lot of the petshop ones have sharp bristles and hurt the dogs skin. Some dogs have quite sensitive forelegs and brushing with a cheap, sharp slicker can make the dog HATE anyone touching their legs with a brush. If you have a chance, see if you can go to a dog show and check out the slickers on offer in the traders area. They are more expensive but good quality and the bristles on the slickers don't have sharp, scratchy ends.

That's pretty much how we taught Benson, and as the treat went in we'd say "Bang!" He soon figured out that bang meant lay on his side.

I hope you find it. We've lost two Kong frisbees (the red rubber ones that cost $20 each!) at Woodside beach.....we discovered they don't float and our dogs aren't retrievers. They just stood in the waves and watched the last one sink. Someone, somewhere along the Ninety Mile Beach will find a couple of red rubber frisbees washed up on the sand one day when they least expect it.

I use a Trublu dogwash and have done for months....for general bathing of the dogs (I can do two at once as they have chains for two dogs per bath) and more thorough show bathing. The minimum cost is $10 for 10 minutes and it goes up in $2 increments. I take my own shampoo, although I've heard the one supplied isn't too bad, and I towel dry and bring the dogs home to dry them properly with the doggie dryer. I tried bathing them in our bathroom, in the bath with a rubber hose attachment.....absolutely useless, the water pressure was too high and it just kept falling off the tap....and under the shower. There was just too much mess and too much wear and tear on the bathroom fixtures to make it a viable option. Big coated dogs means big hairy wet mess to clean up afterwards. When the Trublu dogwash opened, I thought all my Christmasses had come at once and it's been fantastic. They have a disinfect click on the dial, so I use that first then just use the rinse cycle for the rest of the bath. It's clean, fresh water, not recycled. Aside from being convenient, they are also safe for having an extra dog there. I used to go to a pet shop and use their hydrobath but if I took two dogs, I had to have an extra person with me as there was nowhere to put the spare dog while I was bathing one. At the dogwash, it's fully fenced and I can have a dog in the bath and a dog wandering around the little fenced yard and it's perfectly safe. And I can take as long as I need to with towelling them off, and I'm not trying to wrangle one wet dog while trying to stop another one from getting into something he shouldn't.

The Miss Junes ARE a bit special.......I won't be wanting to change the calender at the end of this month!

We had a simlar escapee problem when Dusty was a baby. We built a puppy run in the backyard and put bricks along the base so she couldn't dig out, but she kept getting out. The fence was made of panels of welded steel rods.....you'd know the type, they are often used for pool fences. I watched in secret after about the 4th escape, and saw Benson go along the fence, staring intently at the vertical rods. He got to one particular spot and tapped his paw on it. Dusty ran to the spot he'd tapped, jammed her head sideways between the rods and wiggled her fat little body through, then plopped out the other side, happy as can be that she was now with Benson. I couldn't believe it. We measured the gaps between the rods and all of them were 3 inches....except that one gap which was 3.5 inches. And that was the spot he picked over and over for her to get out. I learnt that day to NEVER underestimate what a dog is capable of! We lined the fence with wire mesh and she spent a few weeks in there during the day while I was at work, til she was big enough to spend all day with Benson.

I didn't have a catalogue so I don't know what her registered name is......I think her pet name was Summer. If anyone has a catalogue for the obedience trials at Morwell last weekend, she was in the open bitch class PM. She was BOOOOOO-tiful! And had that lovely, loose-limbed movement that long-legged dogs have.

I saw a yellow girl that looked a lot like that black lab at an obedience trial on Sunday. She was slim, leggy and had a very pretty head ( and was taking herself for a walk out of the group stays when I noticed her....she must have been missing her mum, who was hiding in the tent for the out of sight stays!) I like labs but I don't think I've ever seen one as pretty as this girl, I wish I'd spoken to her owner and found out more about her. Re breeds who are stereotyped....well *my* breed, the Aussie Shepherd, has a reputation for being highly intelligent. Benson dares to be different.

I know a GSD breeder who feeds only raw and never feeds her dogs commercial food. They are gorgeous, long-lived, very healthy dogs who do very well in the show ring, in performance sports and who make wonderful pets.

There are two Sporn non-pulling products....the halter and the harness. They both work in different ways and I've found them both to be effective. The halter is a collar with a padded nose-piece which sits across the muzzle. The harness is a body contraption with padded straps that go under the front legs. I found both of them allowed me to consolidate the correct walking position by actually having him there. It's a bit hard to praise a dog for being next to you when you can't GET him next to you cos he's working on pulling you to the next town. Out of the head halters I've used, the Sporn brand was the most effective and the least disliked by the dog. The lead attaches at the back of the neck, unlike some of the others. it's also soft and padded so it doesn't cut into the dogs face. Once the dog is walking properly, you can easily slip the nose piece off and just use it as a normal collar. Dog starts pulling again, slip it back on.

If Canon would just release a camera in a pocket sized body with an SLR sized sensor and a 50mm f1.4 lens, I'd ditch all my gear and just buy that one.

My favourite lens is the Canon 50mm f1.4. Others in the kit: Sigma 15mm f2.8 fisheye Canon 17-40 f4 L Canon 24mm f2.8 Canon 35mm f2 (there's a lovely story attached to this one) Canon 24-85mm f3.5-5.6 USM...a very under-rated lens. Canon 100mm f2 (2nd fave) Canon 200mm f2.8 L Husband has a Canon 70-200 f4L lens that I can use whenever I want to, but I don't particularly like it. Awesome result but I find it really hard to get a focus lock, and generally forget to use the zoom. I'm a bit of a prime freak so zooming is an alien concept to me.

I think Lacey has the best conformation so that's who you'll be keeping. She also looks a lot like Dusty as a baby, so I'd be happy about that!

Oh wow, Miss Piglet is looking fabulous! I'll have her thanks (except I'd give her a prettier name.)

I think it's entirely fair that the person who owns the property can say what can and can't be inside the house. No matter how we'd all like to pretend that puppies are dear little angels, the fact is most of them have an amazing capacity to be incredibly destructive. Breaking the rules will only make it harder for future tenants with pets. Doberman puppies aren't exactly small and fragile, he will be fine, although he'll probably scream his little lungs out for a few days. Just spend loads of time outside with him and help him settle in the laundry each nigt in his crate. The six months will go pretty quick and you'll have your own house. It won't take long to train him for being inside.