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We also have a dog who does "ballet" - i.e., stretching out her little back legs in ballet poses. She is the smallest pomeranian we have ever seen, must have been the runt of the litter, she is now 11.5 years old and just never grew! We say "is you doing your ballet, Smudge?" and she will run through her "routine". Our senior GSD has become more and more food focussed as he's gotten older. He's fine while we're eating dinner, but the minute we put our plates aside he starts quietly wingeing and grumbling to himself (because he knows he gets fed next). At these times we call him "squeaky boy". We say "oh, poor squeaky boy, you a hungry boy then?" and the quiet wingeing will escalate into backchat, he starts really vocalising, talking to tell us off, to make sure we know JUST HOW CRUEL WE ARE making him wait for his dinner. The same dog will "trade" toys for treats, especially icecream. Ocassionally hubby and I have an icecream after dinner, Tango will rush out to find his nearest toy, rush back and dump it in my lap. This is "you have my [rotten, stinky slobbery old] toy, I have your icecream." He does often get the last little bit, but the funniest thing is that he doesn't quite understand how swapsies work, because as soon as he's polished off my icecream, he wants his toy back! Our Chihuahua is a real little tart in the mornings. She sleeps with us in bed (as do all the four seniors). In the morning when we wake up, we say "time to get up", and she "tarts", grunting and pushing her head under the pillow, bum up waggling her tail - looks like "oh no, just one more snooze, please".

We are also looking at hotwiring the pen, Sheena, we did look at doing this quite a while ago, but for some reason we decided against it, can't remember why, will chat with my husband this evening to see if it's possible. Believe me, even if I think I have managed to train them out of it, I will never, ever trust them unsupervised around the poultry. Fortunately the chooks have absolutely no interest whatsoever in leaving their pen, it's just these naughty turkey poults and guinea fowl.

Never thought you were :) I know they're a highly controversial training tool, but although I will try some gently gently training methods first ('cos I can't currently buy the collars/lid the pen and have found a good resource for a gentle method after doing a lot of googling yesterday), judging their behaviour I think it's going to take something a bit stronger. If I can get them to associate the poultry with a shock then I think I've a fair chance of getting them to leave them alone. But will definately lid the pen in due course and will never, ever, trust them around the poultry the way I can the seniors.

I think someone's earlier suggestion of contacting the media (i.e., a current affairs show) is an excellent one. Not only to name and shame this particular business (who I sincerely hope are very close to grooming their last dog, ever), but also because this is something I would never, ever, have even thought about as a possibility when taking my dog to the groomers. I used to regularly take our little -also elderly - pomeranian to the groomers (now do her myself at home), left her there for 3-4 hours without considering for a moment that I wouldn't get her back, safe and sound and groomed when I picked her up. Until reading this most horrific thread it had never even crossed my mind that my dog would not be safe at a salon. But reading some of the posts here, it appears to be - unbelievably - not the first time a death has resulted from a groomer's negligence. If anything positive were to come from this utterly senseless and preventable tragedy, it would be to make dog owners aware so that they may make an educated decision about the practices of their chosen groomer/salon.

Blackjaq, I used to be one of those crying foul, but did a heap, heap, heap of research in the use of them, even testing them on my own skin. Usually I would not look to them as a first port of call, but having watched closely the juniors' behaviours when around the birds/cats, I'm pretty convinced that gently gently methods are probably not going to have much effect in this instance - they go into a very high prey drive zone and whilst usually fairly responsive under normal situations, their behaviour completely changes when they are in chase mode. I can call off two of them, but the other two are completely focussed on the chase. I definately don't want to keep the juniors penned, they are crated inside at night, but have free range of the house and house yard during the day along with the seniors and I like it that way - I am alone here all day long and like having my "security team" on watch for me. Plus they are such happy dogs racing around the property all day long. Happy to lid the chook pen, but as it's so massive and we're currently a little financially embarrased doing anything about it will have to wait a few weeks. I've rigged up an enclosure for the guineas and the turkeys today and will let them out to free range for a couple of hours late afternoon (with the dogs inside the house) until either they're sold or we can lid the pen/train the dogs.

Not sure, will have a look around, although we have done lots of formal obedience training in the past with the seniors, so I am very aware that timing is everything.

Thanks Nekhbet, will do. Bit poor for the next couple of weeks after a busy xmas/new year, so will sell off the turkeys now, then put in some serious hours of training with the collars when we can afford them (using the chooks as "bait"). Once we've lidded the run/trained the dogs I'll look into replacing the turkeys. They're not good for much as we don't eat them, but they're fun birds to have around, especially our big turkey tom.

Did you clip both or one? You should only clip one as it unbalances them then. Only the one, but they still had enough lift to scale the fence, unfortunately.

Exactly what my husband reckons, too. The price alone for four collars is a deterrent at the moment.

Unfortunately it does sound like that's the way it's going to have to go - unfortunately we're talking a good 1/2 an acre or more sized pen, so it's not going to be an overnight exercise. I think in the interim I'm going to sell/rehome the turkeys and guineas for their own sake, once we have the pen with a lid on then I can get some more and in the meantime try working on the dogs although I don't know that I'd ever be able to fully trust them the way I can the seniors. We have already spoken to the neighbour, she doesn't care about her cat, she has 19 cats of her own and also runs a "cat hotel" (i.e., cat boarding other peoples' cats). We told her the cat was always at our place, she just laughed and said "oh yes, we see him from time to time". Poor cat really wants to move in with us, but one of our cats is very territorial and would make his life a misery. Fortunately his encounter with the dogs seems to have given him wisdom in hindsight, both he and us are now very, very careful to make sure he is well out of the way when the dogs are out. We did clip the turkeys wings originally, didn't stop them being able to clear the fence and now I don't want to clip them again because it would give them less of a chance to escape the dogs. I've jury-rigged up a temporary enclosure for them which they hate, but at least they are safe until I can move them on (have them advertised for sale today). Thanks for all the input, everyone, guess I was looking for a miracle cure and already knew myself there probably wasn't one.

We have eight dogs; four seniors and four "juniors" who are all around 18mths old. The seniors are fine around our poultry, never been interested in them and can be trusted 100% even if left alone in the chicken yard without supervision. The four juniors, on the other hand, have already proven themselves to be killers. So far they have jointly killed one guinea fowl and a turkey. They also bailed up the neighbours cat (who has adopted us and lives mostly on the roof of our cat enclosure), fortunately he managed to scale a tree, but I have little doubt they would dispatch the cat if they caught it (they can't get to our cats). Old school methods vary from tying the dead fowl around the dog's neck until it rots off, smacking the dog with the dead bird, etc, etc, apparently this is supposed to be failsafe but this doesn't sit well with me as a method of training. Also doesn't address the cat problem. Can anyone give me a tried and true system/method for getting the dogs to leave the poultry (and cats) alone? Ideally we would love to have the dogs and poultry all free-ranging safely in our house yard (as we can with the older dogs), but that's just a pipedream at this stage. The problem is that although the chickens are happy to stay in their (very large) yard, the young turkeys and guineas are constantly flying up over the fence to the house yard. It's only been good luck that I have spotted the other loose birds before the dogs and managed to get the dogs inside and the birds back into their yard otherwise we would have had a lot more fatalities.

Words simply fail me, I am in tears after reading about your horrific loss and can only imagine the horrendous pain you are suffering right now. Big hugs for you and please, as soon as you are able to, go after the [insert expletives of your choice] salon with all guns blazing, there is no excuse possible that could forgive negligence of this magnitude.

Not in those exact terms.. they won't understand 'faking pain', but they may well have learned to connect lying on the floor or something with you giving them cuddles! Much training is based on the premise that doing something will get them a reward, so it's quite possible that if your dog likes cuddles, he will have connected some sort of behaviour that we interpret as 'faking pain' as something that will get him a cuddle. I have known dogs to fake limps only when they see their owners watching, but the rest of the time walk fine. The second they see the owner watching ... limping again :laugh: how true...except they sometimes forget which leg it was and limp on the other side Absolutely! Many years ago my grandmother had the most gorgeous black lab. He hurt his paw, but loooonnnggg after it was healed you just had to ask him "Oh poor Beau, have you got a sore paw?" and he would limp, limp, limp, over to the bikkie cupboard - usually limping on the wrong foot!

Thanks Noishe, he really doesn't seem phased by the bell at all. I've found some cow bells on ebay cheaply, so worth a try, if they drive the dogs nuts then I'll take them off, but gee, if it DOES work, then what a marvellous cheap fix. I'm going to put them on our goats, the dogs and our little calves. Our dogs have already killed a snake this season, fortunately it was a whip snake not a brown and they didn't get bitten, but poor old snake didn't come off well. And the dogs were just very lucky not to have been bitten. Looks like they just bit the snake in the middle and shook it in half.

Very interested in this theory (would be fantastic if it was proven true), but just wondering how the dogs would feel about having a bell around their necks? Wouldn't it drive them crazy with the constant noise, especially bearing in mind that their hearing is so much more sensitive than ours?

You can get diamond pendants made from the ashes of loved ones (both human and furry). http://lifegemaustralia.com.au/ This is just the first company I found when googling, I'm sure there would be others as well.

One of our boys has just come home from the vet as well, with paraylsis tick poisioning. Thank goodness he is going to be fine. He went down really quickly, from being fine in the morning to being "drunk" in the afternoon. No other signs apart from not being able to walk properly, exactly like he was drunk in the rear end. In fact when I first took him to the vet, the vet was doubtful if it was actually a tick, we started to suspect some sort of spinal injury until we found a tick lodged under the pad on his foot - I had searched him all over for a tick (including between all his toes) before taking him to the vet, he is a short haired dog, but still couldn't find it. $560 later and he is recovering well.

Tralee, would you be kind enough to elaborate? We have some Maldison that we use on the chooks for lice, apparently it is good for fleas on dogs, but doesn't mention anything about ticks - does it work? And why "if you're game"? The stuff smells terrible, very chemically, is that the reason?

Sailor, that rang little alarm bells in my head - have you had the place where she licks checked out? Dogs have been known to worry at a specific spot on their owner's body and when checked out by a doctor, it turns out to be a nasty. I hadn't even thought of it to be honest, I just assumed it was the only place she could reach! I have an appt this week with my GP so I'll put that on my list of things to get checked out. Thank you! :) No problem, I am sure it will be absolutely nothing to worry about, but better to be safe.

Sailor, that rang little alarm bells in my head - have you had the place where she licks checked out? Dogs have been known to worry at a specific spot on their owner's body and when checked out by a doctor, it turns out to be a nasty.

I couldn't watch more than a few minutes of the sled dogs one, it upset me too much the way the dogs were kept. -20 degree weather and they only had those three sided wooden boxes with a bit of straw in them for shelter. I would have understood if they were thick coated dogs like the traditional huskies, but they were mostly cross-breeds and the majority with very thin coats. Poor dogs must absolutely freeze at night in their huts.

We too, have after-shower leg-lickers. I hate it, feels icky. When I was a young girl our dog used to love licking feet and toes, I thought it was gross but Mum loved it - I used to tell the dog to stop it as she just didn't know where those feet had been. Our GSD has to help you put your shoes and socks on. He doesn't worry about thongs or sandals, but has to help with the shoes and socks - this consists of him putting his head under yours (so you can't see what you're doing) and trying to climb onto your lap. The GSD also has "swapsies" figured out. Ocassionally my husband and I will have an icecream after dinner. Tango will race out to grab one of his toys, then brings it back and drops it into my lap. This is "you have my toy, I have your icecream". The truly funny thing is that, once he's finished the rest of your icecream, he wants his toy back! :laugh:

I have heard similar stories from folk who've had a dog maim or kill another one of theirs. Under those circumstances it would be hard to feel the same about a dog I think. I have no doubt that my Labrador would maim or kill my Rotti/Pittie cross if they were ever to be allowed to get into a scrap again. They both stll bear the scars from their last fight a few years ago, which is a constant reminder to me of why they are separated. On the other hand, I couldn't rehome either of them either - as I know exactly what they are capable of if triggered off. Good thing I love them both to death and can manage to keep them here and keep them separate... but don't think all those evil thoughts about one or both of them didn't cross my mind after the last fight they had... T. To be honest if the vet would have done it she would have been pts on the day of the attack. I tried to get past it but it was a totally unprovoked attack on a gorgeous gentle oldie. I found it impossible to forgive her and after much thought and soul searching rehomed her as an only dog. I have a friend who had a terrible incident where a strange bitch got into the whelping room and killed the newborn puppies. I really wish she had rehomed this dog. It was fed and got the care needed but it was never forgiven. She could have been someone's loved pet as she was a lovely dog. I can't believe the vet refused to PTS! What grounds did he/she give? If one of my young dogs attacked one of my seniors like that it would be curtains for sure.

We used a people treadmill for our GSD, too. He also really enjoyed it, unfortunately we had to get rid of it when we moved into our current tiny little cottage. We just looped a bit of rope in the front so he wouldn't walk off the front.

I'm allowed to go to the toilet on my own, but there is always at least a minder or two waiting on the other side of the door when I come out. Except if there's a thunderstorm, then I have to hold a pomeranian under one arm and try to stop the german shepherd sitting on my knee - he won't let me go anywhere without him if there's a storm. Fortunately the other six dogs are oblivious to thunderstorms, thank goodness, as our loo is simply not large enough for nine bodies!