Jasslyn

My two BCs are the same - don't play outside but won't stop playing when they're inside. I have a decent sized suburban yard. The older BC runs laps around it for most of the day, chasing birds or clouds. The pup, Jasper (9 months old) sometimes chases the older boy (he wants to play but the older boy only has eyes for the sky when he's outside). Jasper chases Flynn until Jasper has had enough exercise and then he goes back to sleep. With Flynn, I can take him for a 4 km walk and he will still come home, rest for 5 minutes, and then start chasing whatever is in the sky again. Jasper on the other hand, is very laid back and a little bit lazy. So I think it comes down to the temperament of the dog. I don't think Flynn could survive long term in a small yard but Jasper definitely could. That said, when we visited my mum last, both boys spent most of their time in a small room in her house, only allowed outside when they were supervised as Jasper kept escaping from her yard. They were both perfectly happy with that arrangement and I would say it was the most relaxed I have ever seen Flynn.

My first thought upon reading the OP is that the pup needs to go to the toilet. It may also be that he just doesn't like sleeping in the laundry, but in case the problem is bladder related, I would second SBT123's recommendation and take him out for a no-fuss toilet break during the night. He might cry again for a while when you first put him back in the laundry but as stated above, he'll soon learn that getting up in the middle of the night is just for potty.

Thanks for the responses. I sent them an email today while I was at work so hopefully they'll be able to answer my other questions. One of the answers was on their website - yes they are flexible about what classes are attended so that's good. Although I'm fairly okay at the moment, as far as other commitments go, I do study part time as well as work full time so sometimes I won't be able to make it. The training times section of their website lists some of their classes as being at North Melbourne only but the enquiries form shows that most classes are available from all of their locations so I've queried that too. I'd prefer not to go to North Melbourne but I do think Flynn would enjoy agility.

I'm looking for an obedience class for Flynn and Jasper (BCs) with the possibility of then going onto Agility and other dog sports. I took Flynn to Werribee Dog Obedience a last year but didn't feel that their techniques would work for me - using the correction collar with the sharp, jerky movements suggested was hurting my back. And Flynn had been taught using positive reinforcement up to that time so he didn't seem to respond too well to their techniques either. Anyway, I realise it will be more expensive but I'm looking at taking the boys somewhere they'll be in a smaller group and where the trainer will have more time to work with me. I've found that Planet K9 run classes in Hoppers Crossing and wanted to know if anyone has any experience with them? They have a basic dog manners class, advanced obedience, agility and dog sports classes. http://www.planetk9.com.au/dogtrainingclasses.html One of my concerns is that you pay for a set amount of weeks (i.e. 6 weeks). What happens if you have to miss a week - do you forfeit that class or can you "make it up" at another time? The basic dog manners course is $180 for I think 6 classes and one 1-on-1 session, I'd hate to miss one but sometimes things happen that are out of our control. And is 6 weeks long enough or have people found that they have to go back for another 6 weeks? The agility class is for a set amount of weeks as well and then I'd assume you have to find an agility club to use the facilities - I know Werribee Dog Obedience runs Agility but I think your dog has to have attained a minimum obedience level before they can join in so can you join in without going through their club obedience classes (i.e. if my boys have already learned their obedience commands at somewhere like Planet K9)? I'll be sending an email to Planet K9 to ask these questions but I thought someone here might know. I'm considering asking if it's okay to go and watch one of their sessions to see what it's like but would be really interested to hear other people's experiences. If you have experience with other trainers in the Werribee area I'd also be interested in reading those too.

I agree that she'd probably be happier outside, if you can manage it. When my older dog Flynn came to live with me as a puppy he spent the first 3 weeks locked inside because I was worried about him being outside. He was still crying at week 3, and the neighbours did complain. Plus I'd come home to a hyperactive puppy, which I didn't enjoy very much. Week 4, he went outside. I took him for a walk before I left for the day, put him outside with toys, kongs and bones, the neighbours stopped complaining and I came home to a happy, exhausted puppy. When I got my young puppy, Jasper, he spent the first week in the laundry as he just looked too tiny to go outside. But he was miserable and bored. I'd put toys in there with him, and bones, and come home to find neither had been moved. So he went outside, and now he's happy.

My older BC gets very excited when we have guests. I've found what works is to put him outside before I answer the door. He can see through the glass sliding door as I let the visitors in. I let everyone sit down and get comfortable, serve drinks and then, if Flynn is settled outside I let him in to see everyone. When he is allowed to come in and see everyone, he'll normally approach them sedately for a pat on the head and will only jump up on them if invited. If he is rude, he goes back outside. There's only 2 people that visit that this doesn't work with: - my dad. When Flynn was a pup I told dad the rule was no pats unless four paws on the ground and I was told it was cruel to make such a rule for a puppy and he was allowed to jump up on dad. So my rule then became, those that don't play by the rules have no right to complain about the 20kg dog, now a grown up puppy, jumping on them. - my best friend. She brings him treats and also encourages the jumping... and then complains about it. I've asked her to help with the training of manners and she proceeds to razz Flynn up so she gets what she deserves too. It sounds like you really are getting frustrated with your pup. As has been suggested, it would be a good idea to separate yourself from the problem when you feel the frustration building. Maybe put him in his crate with a good chew toy to give you both a time out to calm down.

My dog is not interested in the tuffies at all. If he can't kill it, it's not fun The kongs are good. But I think they should be made to glow in the dark - we've lost our black one somewhere in the yard. Hopefully I'll find it on the weekend when I actually get to see the dogs (and the yard) in full daylight.

As others have suggested, I'm also thinking it's a yeast infection. I read your opening post and immediately thought of my old boy (now waiting at the Rainbow Bridge). I tried for 5 years to find out what was causing the same symptoms you described, finally found a vet who simply put a bit of sticky tape on the dog's bald back, put it under a microscope and said "it's a yeast infection". For a while I cooked for my dog, he had stews with rice every day. His hair grew back, the smell went away and the itching and dandruff stopped too. Eventually I tried feeding him Coprice dry dog food and he stayed healthy on that, and had a lovely sheen to his coat. At one stage he had a relapse which I couldn't understand as I hadn't changed anything for him but I found out the neighbour's kids had been feeding their sandwiches to him through the fence... told them to please stop that as it was like poison to him and he got better again. Something I did find helped with his itchiness when he was at his worst was pinetarsol (from the chemist). I mixed some up in a spray bottle and would have it sitting beside me. When he needed relief Jake would let me know and he'd stand there while I sprayed him.

Jasper (BC puppy) had learned to hold it all night by the time he was 9.5 weeks old. I just make sure I take him out for one last potty break before I go to bed.

When he's barking at the birds, yes he looks like he's having fun. When he's barking at noises, he looks frenzied. He is walked daily for 30-40 minutes, we also do a "formal" training session every night for 15 minutes, there is also informal, unstructured training in the morning and throughout the evening. He now also has Jasper to play with. The boys get a kong each every morning before I go to work. Yes he went to puppy classes. We did start obedience but it was too painful for me physically so I teach him at home using more gentle methods (for my back). He came from a registered breeder. Yes, I agree, it's not just about stopping the barking. I want him to be happy AND not barking. So I think I need to first heal the stress that the noises are causing and that will, hopefully, in turn make the barking cease. I just don't know how to go about doing that. I read a suggestion in the forum to scatter food around the yard to give the dogs something to do so I just went out and did that and he was interested in that and has piped down since foraging but he is still running laps around the backyard. I try to alternate his toys but he destroys any toy that has stuffing in it and chews up tennis balls. The only toys he doesn't destroy immediately are rope toys. He's not very interested in playing fetch... he'll get the ball at most 3 times and then seems to get frustrated with the fact I keep throwing the ball away. He loves empty plastic bottles, so I give him my empty milk bottles and we play soccer with them. I just also bought a "bungee rope" at the MegaPet Warehouse, it's an elasticised rope that you can hang on the fence so there's resistance when they tug. He hasn't shown an interest in it yet but the puppy loves it.

Hi All I have 2 border collies, Flynn and Jasper. Flynn is nearly two and has a barking problem which I've figured out is partly a fear problem. He barks at trucks, excavators, construction noises (including power tools) and thunderstorms. He also barks at birds but I think that's for fun. Normally when he's in barking mode it's really hard to get his attention to get him to settle down. So I've been working on getting his focus on me when he's outside. I've been staying outside with him and when he starts to focus on whichever noise is upsetting him, I've been telling him to look at me and giving him a treat for obeying. Yesterday I sat outside with him for 2 hours while the birds were flying over and gave him a treat if a flock flew over but he stayed by my side instead of chasing. Then when I came inside, I went out every 5-10 minutes and gave him praise (sometimes with a treat) if he was still being quiet. If he started barking I went out immediately and got his focus back on me and told him to stop and settle down. This is what I did when he was a pup to get him to stop barking at birds so this is just a refresher course. I intended to try the same process this morning with the trucks and excavators. This morning there is a truck pouring a concrete slab just a few doors down from us and there is very noisy excavation a few blocks away. Flynn and Jasper like to go out for a run and play straight after breakfast so I put them out at about 6:45. Flynn had a short burst of barking when he first went out but I managed to get him to focus back on me and settle down. He had been quiet for 10 minutes so I went out to praise him for being quiet and found him in the kennel. Flynn doesn't normally use his kennel but right now he is curled up in there, refusing to come out and wouldn't even take a treat or his favourite squeaky toy when I told him he was great for being quiet. His body language is telling me he's really scared On the one hand, I guess its good that he's found somewhere he considers safe when he's scared. On the other hand, it's just not good that he's this scared about what are everyday noises in my neighbourhood (it's a new estate). As well as the above method of rewarding him for quiet, settled behaviour, I've also purchased a sound desensitisation cd. I don't know if anyone has had success with these but I'm hoping it will get Flynn over his fear of these noises, as well as preventing similar problems in Jasper, my 12 week old puppy. The CD instructions say to focus on one noise at a time so I'm working on thunderstorms because they're both scared of them. It's going well. I didn't realise Flynn's fear of the excavators was so bad though and I'm thinking I should have started the desensitisation with those noises. Do you think it's a bad idea to change now? Yesterday I was able to take him for his walk at a different time of day so I took him on a path that takes us near to where the excavators are working. There was just one working at the time and he walked by it, at first a little tentatively but he soon got absorbed in sniffing a tree, so I actually thought that was progress as his attention was not on the excavator. I was hoping that seeing the source of the noise would help him - he used to be scared of buses but I slowly got him out of that by letting him see them at an ever decreasing distance. I'm also leaving the tv on inside at all times in the hope that he'll focus on that familiar, comfortable noise instead. Am I trying too many things at once? If anyone has any advice/suggestions for getting this under control, please give them. I haven't had any complaints from neighbours about his barking, I want to get it under control before that happens and also because I want Flynn to be happy and I don't think he is. I want him to stop barking but I don't want it replaced by him suffering in silence - I want him to not be scared of these things.

I'm definitely not an expert but I can tell you what works for my 10 week old pup, and what also worked for my 2 year old dog when he was a pup. From what I've seen, dogs don't want 7-8 hours of uninterrupted sleep like we do. My young pup is happy to have an hour or 2 of good sleep and then he wants to play for an hour or two. And then he wants to sleep again. That doesn't change just because I want to sleep. So when I get him up at night to go potty, we go out, he does his business and then he gets put back in his crate with a few quiet toys. He's allowed to play in there but it's alone play. I go back to bed. If he whines, I ignore it as I don't want him to learn that crying and carrying on is the best way to get what he wants. The first night we did this, he cried for about 30 minutes, and loudly. Second night he cried for 15 minutes, then 10 minutes, now he just finds his toy and plays by himself. I suspect that by sitting with your pup until he falls asleep you're creating a bigger problem for yourself. I do understand how hard it can be to be hard-hearted when they're so cute and needy ETA: My older dog can now chill out for the whole night while I sleep. I hear him move around during the night when he needs to get more comfy but he's learned to have 6-7 hours of down time at night with me. Other dogs I've had that slept outside would be found playing outside at 2am, because they could do that without disturbing the family.

Thanks for that Lucknow. My mum had mentioned it might be good to keep some Ipecac around but she wasn't sure if it was for children/humans only. I also have lectric soda in my bathroom but I think I'll get some Ipecac for just in case. And thanks for pointing out that not all poisons should be regurgitated. Flynn also has a sock fettish. So far he hasn't swallowed any of them though.

When it is my house, I will definitely be managing any pest problem differently - but this is not my house therefore I cannot set the rules, the owner wanted the mouse bait down and my only option was to keep Flynn away from it or get rid of Flynn. Keeping the door closed to that room was working well, unfortunately the door has now stopped latching closed properly and he discovered that he could push it open - which is when I discovered that the latch was broken. I've since spoken to the home owner again about not having the bait down and he has agreed to remove it, only because this has happened, he did not understand the danger before and thought that the room could be secured properly. We'll be moving at the end of the month and there won't be any bait used in my home because I agree that the poisons cause a very nasty painful death. If something like this were to happen again, I would definitely still take him to the vet. I was not implying that I wouldn't. However, the vets he saw on Friday night made a point of saying that the sooner you can get a dog to vomit after poisoning, the better the prognosis for the dog is - so having something on hand to immediately cause vomiting is good for the dog. Then seek medical attention. It was a 20 minute drive to get Flynn to the emergency vet on Friday night - that is 20 minutes that he had the poison in his system because I couldn't induce vomiting at home. I've seen that there is a list of plants that are toxic to animals on this forum so I'll be consulting that when I plant my garden at the new house, but I'm also considering poisons like that when I ask "what to do if he does this again". Because as you say, his environment will have to be watched very carefully given that he doesn't seem to be growing out of the "put everything in your mouth" phase. I'm really just putting the question out there because I can't control everything that he comes into contact with - it might be a neighbour who throws something at him, he might eat a plant I don't know is poisonous to him, he might chew on some rubbish... so I want to have the right stuff on hand to administer first aid next time with the full intention of then getting him real medical attention.

I wanted to know what people would recommend for a first aid kit specifically for pets. I had an unfortunate incident on Friday night - Flynn found out how to push open a door to a room I never let him go in, and while he was in there he found the mouse bait that is in there and ate quite a bit of it. I took him to the emergency vet, they made him vomit it all up and then gave him charcoal to absorb anything that didn't come up. I have to continue to watch him for signs of internal bleeding but the vets are hopeful that he will be okay. I'm now wondering what I can keep in the house for first aid in case of emergencie like this in the future. I have thrown out all the bait but Flynn does have a habit of eating/chewing anything he finds (the vets on Friday night said he is the only dog they have ever come across that willingly ate charcoal) so I can't guarantee that he won't eat something he shouldn't again. For instance, a few weeks ago someone threw an onion into our yard while I was at work and he did have a small chew on that. And sometimes on windy days we end up with other people's rubbish blowing in - so far the stuff that has blown in hasn't been dangerous to him but one day it could be an empty chemical container that he decides to chew on. Is there a product I can get that I can use to induce vomiting if necessary? I plan on asking the vet when I take Flynn back for a check up/refill of the vitamin K syrup he has to take but thought you wise DOLers might have suggestions too. What things would you recommend having in the cupboard "just in case"?

I am definitely not an expert but I can tell you what I did with my BC boy. With Flynn I found I had to take him out every 20 minutes at that age, depending on the time of day/night. He pees more frequently at night. I didn't put him on lead to go out but he would walk beside me. If he seemed to be more interested in sniffing and playing, I'd move to another part of the yard. I generally found that if he was going to go, he would pee at the 3rd spot we'd go to so I started moving through 1 and 2 faster to get to 3! I waited until he started to wee and then I'd say "good boy, go potty". A few times I gave him treats but then he'd forget to finish weeing Once he realised he got praise for going to toilet, he had to learn that he only got praise if he went to the toilet outside. Each time he had an accident inside, I'd just make a disappointed "oooohhhh" sound (think about the sound a kid makes when mum says they can't play with the toy they want -ooohhh mum - and that's the noise I made) and I'd pick him up and put him outside while I cleaned the mess. With the biting, I had suggestions to yelp like a dog but my first response when something hurts is to say ouch so I just took to saying ouch really loud. When that didn't work I tried ouch and removed myself. I found after 2 days of ignoring him for a good 5 minutes after he bit me he learned not to bite. I also started giving him bones and other chewy things - this helped with the biting of me and the teething. Now he knows when he feels the need to be destructive to just go and get one of his bones. I don't have any suggestions regarding the barking at you, as Flynn only barks at birds but I suspect GoldD's suggestion would be very helpful. It is helpful to remember that BCs are very social animals - they need your company and attention, so I suspect it would be a very powerful tool if you reward undesirable behaviour with absolutely no attention, unltimately he wants to please you and be with you so he'll soon learn what doesn't please you. It will be worth it in the end, he will eventually "get it" and you'll wonder what you were worried about!

At least it sounds like Zach had fun . It was very hot yesterday so it seems to me Zach maybe had the right idea. I hope he does better for you next time though.

My pup started waking me up earlier too (and I was already getting up at 5:30 so that there'd be time to walk him before leaving for work), so I was getting a little annoyed about that. He sleeps in a crate beside my bed though and I found the solution to the problem was putting a blanket over his crate so it's always dark in there. I leave the side facing me uncovered, so he can see me, but it's the side away from the windows. Now I just have to figure out a way to put a blanket over my bed. This morning we slept until 6:30, and it was me who woke us up, not him.

That picture is great!

Hi Chloebear Flynn started digging holes and I was advised to put some of his poop in the hole so that he wouldn't want to dig there anymore. It worked. But now he digs in lots of other places :rolleyes: I'm just hoping now that it is something he'll grow out of - just a puppy thing like chewing everything. I vaguely recall my last dog doing something similar but then getting to a stage where he only dug holes if it was to put bones in them (which might be why Flynn is digging - he's finding the buried treasure!).

Thanks all for the advice. Like I said, I'm really not interested in getting a crate for him at this time. He won't be going to shows and it's extremely unlikely he'll ever be in a bushfire. I only go away for 2-3 weeks a year so I don't think it's worth getting a crate. I guess I'll just try making him sleep outside at home occasionally so it's not too much of a shock to him when we do go away. I also thought it might help that it will be summer when I have holidays. Already he's unhappy in the house if the heating goes higher than 19 degrees so he might be more comfortable sleeping outside once summer comes.

lol but the dog is welcome - in the backyard.

Hi Kavic. Thanks for the reply. Do you think a play pen would work the same as a crate? He currently has a playpen at home, so he's already familiar with it. I'm reluctant to pay for a crate that will only need to be used at most twice a year. He will definitely not be allowed inside the house at my mum's (food safety/hygiene reasons) so will have to sleep outside. Will being in a crate/pen make any difference if he is not accustomed to sleeping outside?

Hi All I have a border collie puppy who is currently sleeping in my bedroom at night. I'd like for him to be an inside dog at night and an outside dog during the day when I'm at work. He seems to be happy sleeping inside with me and I figure, even if we are both sleeping, it is still time spent together. The problem is, when we go on holidays to visit my family, he will come with me but won't be allowed to sleep inside with me. When we are on holidays he will have to be outside all the time. My mother owns a caravan park so I can't have my pup howling and crying all night when we go there (as it would disturb the paying customers). Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can get Flynn to be okay with sleeping outside occasionally. We won't be going to visit my mum until Christmas, so maybe he'll be old enough (he'll be close to 7 months old then) to just accept the change when we do go there but at the moment he's a very vocal little fella so I'm worried how he'll react. After 2.5 weeks, he's only just (I think) stopped howling through the day when I'm not there. I say "I think" because I can only base this assumption on the fact that he doesn't cry when I leave, he's not crying when I get home and the neighbours have stopped complaining about his noise. I was thinking about making him sleep outside in his kennel one night a week but I'm not confident that would work (once a week I think would be too far apart to have any training benefits but please tell me if I'm wrong). Any advice would be greatly appreciated.