Nushie

We tried a few things when Jager was a pup. The one that worked the best was what i would call the approach/retreat method. Start with pup in the pen and you armed with yummy treats. Stand facing the pen, take one step backwards and then straightaway forwards again, treat the pup. do this a few times. Then take 2 steps backwards and then straight forward again, treat the pup. Repeat. Take 3 steps backwards etc. Dont add more steps until the pup is calm and just waits for you to come back to treat it. If you get to the point that the pup starts fussing then reduce the number of steps, and build up again. When you get the point where you can no longer back away from the pen without leaving the room, then you go back to the pen and repeat the process but this time turning away from pup. So stand at the pen, turn and take 1 step away from the pen, turn back straight away and treat the pup. Continue doing this as you did when facing the pen and slowly build up the steps. When you reach the point where you run out of space, you disappear from their view for a spilt second, then return back to the pen straight away and treat. Again, building up the time that you disappear. When time gets longer, we used to give a harder treat or stuffed kong that would take Jager a few minutes to eat. And we would leave the room, and return just before he finished the treat. That way he was distracted and rewarded when we werent there. We used to do short 5 min sessions numerous times a day. When the session was over, he was allowed out of the pen and we have calm time watching tv. We made sure that whenever he was first let out of the pen it was spent doing calm things, we found this helped as he wouldnt get overly excited and start bouncing all over the place when we went to let him out. After 10 mins of being out we would place a game or something more active. As it stands now (Jager is 4 in March) when we go out he always gets a frozen kong. And every morning we have the same routine and he sits infront of the freezer waiting while i put my shoes on cause he knows that his kong is next. Hope that makes sense. Its what worked for us, and it is a slow process, and it may not work for everyone, but it is what worked for us. Good luck!!

That is the exactly the same as the one i got for Jager when he was a puppy. It is the only soft toy that he hasnt destroyed over the years. He lives in his crate and he used it as a pillow for the first year of his life and would always sleep with his head on it. Now he sleeps in my bed and i am his pillow. I would recommend them too!!

I could see the lightning last night from our back door but we didnt get any rain, got a bit of a drop in temp (down to about 25) but without any breeze it didnt blow much of the hot air out of our house dispite having all the windows and doors open all night. Today is going to be tough on Jager. My OH has been home all week to watch him but we are both at work today so Jager will be inside alone all day, i have put the fan on for him, put down the cool mat (which he doesnt use) and put out some frozen coke bottles around where he tends to sleep when we are out and in front of the fan. Plenty of water for him and the house is on lock down so is pitch black. I cannot wait for Saturday, to of 21 here and I think i am going to just go and lay on the freezing concrete until i turn blue. Hope everyone is staying safe and has an emergency plan in place if you are in a dry area. Dont forget to have plenty of water for youself and the pets packed.

Clay has gotten so big, I still remember his puppy photos on here!! He is such a stunning dog.

This is a great idea!! I have a cooling mat for Jager but he doesnt like it. I "forced" him to lay on the mat with the help of some treats and but once the treats ran out he was off the mat in a flash! Today he will be alone in the house for a couple of hours (with access outside) and i have left the fan on, put the cooling mat in one of his fav spots near the gate and also put a frozen bottle of water wrapped in a tea towel near it. He sleeps near the baby gate when we arent there so even if he doesnt lay ont he mat he might get some coolness radiating off the bottle. Our house held up reasonably well yesterday. Was substantially cooler inside rather than out, dont know how long that will last with another 3 days of heat planned with no relief overnight (our low overnight was 26 degrees). Hope everyone else is staying as cool as possible.

Are these with your new camera?? I love the fig (??) tree base. I am a real sucker for trees though :) Great shots!!

New Zealand. top photo is at Mirror Lake and the bottom is at Queenstown

Thats the one that I got, but i didnt get the extra lens (although i wish i did). I have really enjoyed it so far.

Thanks all, really appreciate all the comments and you have given me a lot to think about and i am obviously over doing it.

When we first got Jager we were advised by our vet to use Frontline Plus for fleas and ticks and Sentinel Spectrum for heartworm, intestinal worms and fleas. At the time we were in Sydney (now in Melbourne) and i just took the vets advice and have been using this routine monthly for the past nearly 3.5 years, never had any problems. Just been thinking lately, with my other half loosing his job, that it might be overkill, and that we might be forking out for just doubling up on prevention. I am using 2 flea control programs. Is it work using just the Sentinel to cover all? Or continue using the frontline but change to interceptor or similar that only does heartworm and intestinal worms?? What do other people in the Melbourne area use? I always used frontline plus cause it covered ticks but i am not sure if this is a necessity in Melbourne, maybe i should just use the spectrum sentinal and only use frontline in the warmer months? I am just so confused!!! I have just bought another 3 months supply of each so i have plenty of time to work out if i want to change at all.

I think also that the general public see small dogs as toys - well not exactly toys but because they are small, some people will see them as not needing to go for walks every day, not needing to be socialised and not needing to be properly trained. Someone owning a larger breed migh come across a problem and seek advice, where a smaller breed, you see a lot of people laughing it off. Just go to youtube. I remember searching for a video on cutting difficult dogs nails and finding this video of a smaller terrier breed that was growling and snapping and lashing out as soon as the nail clippers came close to it, and both the owner and the person behind the camera where laughing their heads off, tormenting this poor dog with the clippers, just putting them close to it, it lashes out, then pull them away and then back again. They found it hilarious. If there were a big dog, no one would have found that funny.

Jager did this when he was younger, mainly weekends. We broke it by taking him out to the toilet, giving him breakfast and then leaving him in his play pen while i went back to bed. He didnt like that idea so after a couple of weekends of that, he was only waking me up to toilet and then we would both go back to bed. If he didnt settle, he went to the play pen. But generally he just went straight back to sleep. He would much rather be asleep next to our bed then on his own in the loungeroom.

Bob-a-lot! http://k9pro.com.au/bob-a-lot.html Jager gets his breaky and dinner in it and it takes him about 20mins to get all of it out. But you can make it easier or harder depending on the size of the holes you adjust it too.

Didn't think about those. What about tinned tuna? He vomits sardines, usually at 3am

Im in Brunswick West. Not sure how far that is from you. Still have no idea about Melbourne suburbs :)

I have found a good receipe for dog treats (thought i could make some up for the family/friends dogs for christmas) however I would like to mix up the flavours a bit. On the receipe it says you can add peanut butter etc so that is one option, and i figure i could mash up some banana and put that in. But for the rest of the variety is canned baby food alright to use?? Jager doesnt do well on red meat and i will probably make some homemade chicken stock to add to a batch as well but seeing as there looks like a pretty good variety of baby food flavours, do you think i could use them? Surely they wouldn't be packed full of salt and sugars? Any other ideas on what i can add to make more flavours??

I have social anxiety and meeting new people and doing new things is quite hard for me. I emailled my local training club when we moved to our new place about 2 months ago and never got a response. Called and left a voicemail, still no response and being a social r-tard that was all the pushing that i could do. I will have a look in the social section and see if there is anyone around my area. Thanks :)

Thanks guys. Appreciate the feedback. We walk to the park and generally if there are too many dogs, or dogs that i know aren't friendly then we just keep walking. I just didnt think it was fair for the staffy to put up with Jager, or have them leave, when he was over it all. It wasn't an aggressive growl, move a piss off you're annoying me growl. Unfortunately we don't know dogs down here. Moved to VIC last year and we still don't know any people with dogs, at least not people that we would socialise with. Most of the dogs around our place are friendly and we have found a nice group of about 4 or 5 that are at the park in the afternoons and they all seem to get on well and usually it is Jager who gets bored and then goes to get pats off people or have a sniff etc. Good to know i am on the right track :)

Hi everyone, just wanted some advice on what i should do in the future in the situation below. Appreciate all feedback on what i did was right or wrong. Was down at the local park the other day having a play with Jager and lovely older staffy came in. Both dogs met onlead and were fine so we agreed to let them have a play, we have met the dog a few times in the street prior to this. They played nicely and were running around playing chasey. Then about 10 mins later i think the staffy might have started to get tired or bored or whatever and so stopped and was just sniffing around and ignoring Jager. So Jager trying to encourage him to play just kept jumping all over him and trying to play bitey face and doing play bows and being a general pain the butt to the staffy who just kept putting his head in the air and turing away. So i called Jager away and we did some heeling, sit stays, drop stays, focusing etc to get his attention off the staffy in the hope that Jager would calm down and not continue to annoy the staffy. He responded well, did as he was told, but as soon as we went back to the staffy he was back to being annoying again. The staffy growled (understandably) and i thought it might put Jager off, but nope! Staffy growled again so it was only fair to leave and give the staffy some peace. I dont blame the staffy for growling, i would too with an annoying pug jumping around and slobbering on my ears. I thanked the owner and we left the park. Is there something else i should try in future to try and direct Jager away? Jagers not one for playing fetch and i have never seen him annoy a dog so much before. Usually if a dog ignores him, he just ignores them. Any other exercises i can do with him? Or just walk away if he starts getting too worked up? Thanks in advance :)

Really? Really? I generally walk Jager twice a day, but due to the OH's unemployment he has been doing it and i can tell as soon as i get home whether they have been for a walk or not cause Jager bounces off the walls. Sure he is a couch potato, when he has been for his walks. Otherwise he runs riot through the house :)

Growing up we had a standardbred. He was huge, standing at 16 and a bit hands but was the most gentle soul. As a kid every Sunday my mum would take me out to see him and i would brush him while he ate his feed, if i was lucky she would let me sit on him while he ate. Eventually i begged her to let me learn to ride and i would be on him bareback plodding around with my legs barely reaching half way down his ribs. So gentle and so calm. Couldnt trot, only paced. My mum used to say he was the best $200 she ever spent.

Jager has to sit and make eye contact with us before he gets dinner. Usually we dont even need to give the command to "wait" anymore and most times he has to look back away from the bowl in order to make eye contact so that we give the command "OK" for him to eat. We have on the odd occassion of being worse for wear the next morning forgotten to give the OK command and he has been left sitting there for 15 mins. Poor monkey. Usually only remember when i dont hear the ching of his tag against the bowl. Jager is not allowed in the kitchen when we are cooking and so has to sit on the carpet. This stops him from picking up anything that might drop. Generally we dont care about him being in there, but if we start cooking we tell him "out" and he goes out to the carpet. He then sits or lays there staring at us hoping for some carrot or a treat (he loves carrot!!) He is allowed on the furniture whenever he likes except when we have food out. We generally eat at the coffee table so if we are there with food he knows he has to be on the floor and not on the couch.

Jager does really well with treats and naturally he is keen to stick close to us which helps with recall. When he is offlead he generally has a natural radius around us that he feels "safe" in. And if he notices that he is outside of that radius he comes running back. If we notice that he has wandered a little too far we call his name. This isnt a come here signal its a "look at me" and focus. If he is too far away he comes back in, if he isnt he will just keep sniffing. If we want him to come back we call his name so he focuses on us and then call "come". He usually comes trotting back to us. If we want him to get back to us faster we call "Quick, quick, quick" in a higher pitch (sort of excited tone) and that usually gets him to pick the pace up to canter. But no matter how slow or quick he comes back, he always gets a treat, every time.

At least once a day but i try and let him have a run twice a day if possible. There is a great little park near us that i try and stop in after our walks morning and afternoon. Mornings are great cause we get the park to ourselves and its so peaceful. Afternoons there is generally a group of people with there dogs there so Jager gets some time to have a play and run with them.

That's exactly how Boston sleeps! I couldn't figure how to described it so I said between my legs, but he snuggles in behind my knee and rests his head on my leg, pinning me so I can't move :laugh: If Jages stays up with my OH and comes to bed and I am sleeping differently he will stomp back and forth across the bed until i move into the right position. Generally i dont even wake up and just roll into it now.