DeltaCharlie

Do you have access to a chiro? Hanging the head can be seen in a dog that has thrown its neck out. Fingers crossed it turns out to be nothing xo

If I understand it correctly, councils can stipulate a "recommended dog limit" for their suburbs, although they don't have to actually use the word recommended when telling people about it :) If push comes to shove, however, they can only legally enforce it if there are neighbour complaints about barking, you are deemed to not have adequate space to house them, or if it is considered unhygeinic due to too much poo not picked up. That is NSW wide and can be found in the Companion Animal document.

We have 11 :) 3 would be a breeze! I had 2 for a while before I started fostering, but usually fostered 2 at a time which gave me 4. 4 was a jump from 2, but that was made harder because you don't bond with a foster like you do your own. I did have 3 for a while though, and seriously considered keeping the 3rd as he was such a lovely dog, he just wasn't high drive enough for me. Having those 3 really weren't much different to the 2.

I prefer to stick with less than 15% of all interactions with my puppy being actually training. So if the puppy has learnt that much in 15% of interactions, there is a hell of a lot of play required to balance out the other 85%, and at 23 weeks that is not a lot of time left for normal puppy behaviours and sleeping. Editing or not, that is an awful lot of formal training for a young puppy IMO. In saying that, it is a choice she has made that works for her and her dog, and she has obviously had a lot of fun with her puppy. I would prefer to see that than someone who has bought a puppy, thrown it in the yard, and forgotten about it. The behaviours that a bored puppy teaches themselves are far worse than teaching them too many cute tricks and burning them out.

Very cute little dog but there is no way I would be doing that much with one of my pups. They have their whole lives to learn cute tricks, they are only a puppy for a limited time. This is the time to be learning about how much fun life is and doing normal puppy things. Sure, you can have training mixed in there, but IMHO that is too much.

It all depends on whether or not the vet has an account set up with vetpath in WA from what I can work out. It costs them nothing to set up an account and they can offer cheaper testing, $60 seems pretty standard. Otherwise $200 seems about average. Until I discovered the holistic vet in Canberra I was going to take the 6hr round trip to Sydney to get mine done for 60 as everyone else down here quoted me 200. Some tack a consult fee on top which adds to the price.

I pay $60 per dog to be tested for parvo and distemper, the blood is sent to WA. I don't know of anyone who has titred for hep, it hasn't been seen in aus for 30 years or something like that so they don't advise worrying about titre levels. Without exposure they would be expected to be quite low as the antibodies have never been needed.

At castle hill you have one ring set up near the bottom of the hill (where the big shelter is), then there is probably about 20m to the next ring (with a trailer of equipment parked in between. Then between the middle ring and the end one you have about 15m with another trailer of equipment. Its probably a bigger gap between rings there than you will find at most trials and perfect for you dogs with the car/trailers in between to block it slightly. They can't really see the other dogs running at all if that is what you are worried about :) You do get people congregating between the rings though.

Looking at getting into tracking with our working borders for something different to do. We have been advised of 2 different methods (haven't tried either yet though nor do we know the finer details of it all yet). - Food driven dogs: Walk a track abot 50m long dropping kibble every step of the way. At the end, a jackpot meal (bone/carcuss, cat food, raw meat etc). After a few sessions you start dropping the food every couple of steps etc. Apparently it doesn't take them long to make the connection that there is a smell in between that they need to follow (perhaps you could drag a cat tail at the same time?) Then you start adding slight turns (45 degree or less) so they have to pay attention to the scent to find the jackpot. - Toy driven dogs: Someone walks a track about 100m dragging the toy on the ground. Bring dog out, have person wave toy around then lie it in long grass (or somehow not visible to dog from start) When they have moved away dog goes to toy. Once again, only takes a few days for them to start to notice the scent in between. I know less about this method though, as the dog I was mainly interested in is very food driven and doesn't like toys :) Scent is a dog's strongest sense, so it apparently doesn't take them too long to start noticing tracks laid on the ground. If you are incorporating the smell of cats and/or foxes then that should make it easier for her to make the connection.

I figure it's a successful day when I can just call a dog by its correct name and gender. Now that I think about it I should really replace "good boy/girl" with "good dog" too yeah I've apparently started calling my kelpies by each other's names while trialling. They don't seem to mind too much. I use OK for all of them and they seem to know it only works if I say it. I was injured recently and got a friend to run one of my dogs. She said 'OK' and the dog looked over at me to see if she was allowed to move. I seem to make some sort of a mishmash of their names LOL It would probably be easier if I just called them the wrong name, but I seem to just combine names willynilly :laugh: I was trying to call Rush the other day and called her "Shoes" (a mix of Fuze and Shock) Ours are pretty good at only releasing when the person who asked them to wait gives the ok, although Sweep prefers it to come from his mumma :laugh: I am forever calling out to Tailwag "can you tell your dog he is allowed to eat his dinner now?!" as he will be sitting there with a pile of drool in his bowl thinking he can't eat... As far as release words go, I always used "Let's Go!" as I figured it wasn't too common in my vocabulary. I have been caught out once or twice with it but its pretty rare. They also learnt "Go" as that is Vickie's release and we used to spend a fair bit of time at her place. Then I moved in with Tailwag and she uses "OK" and can never remember to say anything else so they all learnt "OK". Releasing a toy is "Give" or "Give me that F***ing toy right now". Ours will also release on their names. It makes it easier with 11 dogs to have the ability to release them 1 by 1 (feeding time, going out the back door, teasing them while in a stay at the beach, the list is endless :) )

What a clever boy he is :) I want to do it with Shock (10 weeks) but haven't got around to it yet. Plenty of time though :D

We have 7 trialling agility dogs and most of these could do Rally O (and probably obedience if we were interested enough to bother finetuning things), they certainly know how to heel at any rate. Out of those 7 we walk 5 on haltis and 2 on no-pull harnesses :D I don't have the time nor the inclination to walk each dog individually to teach them to walk properly, and then build it up to 2 dogs, 4 dogs etc They love their haltis/harnesses and know it means walk time so I don't see any issue with using them. It depends on what you personally want to achieve though I guess. To me, formal heeling for obedience etc is a completely different activity to loose leash walking. I would never expect my dog to go for a walk in a formal heeling position- how boring for all involved. As soon as you relax the expectation for a walk you are essentially changing the expected behaviour anyway and making it something different. So, go with what works for you. It shouldn't have any negative impact on your future performance training, in fact some of the top agility triallers around the world will only ever walk their dogs on haltis.

Our adults don't leave the house until puppies have had at least one shot, but in all honesty they have probably been trampling parvo into our yard for years and it is making no difference other than to our peace of mind. Parvo clings to everything- your shoes, dog fur, car tyres, etc so chances are you already have small quantities in your yard anyway. It stands to reason that every time another agent is added to the equation the amount of parvo decreases. What I mean by this is a dog that makes direct contact with an infected dog is going to get a much more concentrated exposure than a dog that plays with a dog that walked on a grass that had been rolled in by a dog that had touched an infected dog. Does that make sense? So taking your puppy out is a high risk, taking your adult dog out is a lower risk, simply going out yourself and then playing with the adult dog who plays with the puppy is an even lower risk again. It is up to you where the risk falls that you are happy to accept. Some people are happy with the risk posed by taking the puppy out (I did it with Delta as the socialisation was of very high importance to me given the issues I had with Cody), while other people will take adults out but not puppies. I am not as carefree now as I was with Delta, our pups are currently 9 weeks old and after a flyball comp yesterday I washed all my clothing and showered before I interacted with any of the pups. I borrowed a crate rather than take one of my own to the grounds, and only took the one dog who wasn't allowed to play or share water with anyone else (more due to kennel cough going around than parvo). If it was me, I would be avoiding dog parks with the older dog. Its not worth the risk for the sake of a few weeks.

Men :laugh: I'd buy it online if I were you, will save you heaps of money compared to buying from petbarn and certainly buying from a vet. There are a number of cheap places that sell it, just do a search and find the cheapest one at the time (they are always having deals on shipping or percentage of products so it pays to shop around).

Milbemax does not have ivermectin in it. Milbemax (tablets) and Interceptor (chews) are exactly the same drug made by the same company. With large numbers of dogs the 50 pack works out a lot cheaper in the long run as well if you buy it online for a good price. I have used Inteceptor for about 20 years and recently changed to Milbemax because it is easier to get into the dogs, who hate the chews. Also vets in the ACT area are recommending Milbemax to deal with the whipworm outbreak in the area that has become resistant to Drontal. Most Borders are still dosed with Heartguard and so far no Border Collie in Aust has tested as even carrying the MDR1 gene so it is highly unlikely that Borders in this country will have the problem. If you want to make sure you can simply do the DNA test for the MDR1 gene because dogs affected have to avoid a whole long list of drugs, not just ivermectin. Edited to add that all the puppy worming suspensions are basically useless. I have used tablets for puppies from 10 days for 25 years. The tablets are easier to dose with and more effective. Interesting to read that. If you look at the Novartis site they state that interceptor is safe to use for all collie breeds and in indivduals with ivermectin sensitivity. Yet if you look at their milbemax page is says that safety cannot be guaranteed in collie type breeds. I wonder why that is if they are the same drug? If the milbemax is in fact safe to use it would certainly work out cheaper for us, given that we have 11 dogs to worm each month! It might not be common in the Australian dogs that have been tested but our dogs are all imported lines or aussie working lines (and I highly doubt any of them have ever tested for MDR1 :) ) Knowing my luck, one of mine would fall into the 1-5% catagory...

As for the cat litter question, I used to use a baby gate to keep the dogs out of there. The other thing you can do is put the litter tray on top of a washing machine or counter etc in the laundry. Somewhere the cats can easily access but the dog can't.

Interestingly enough I went into the local vet (not our usual one) the other day to pick up a single drontal tablet as the suspension we have been using for this litter ran out with one puppy to go. The vet nurse wanted me to have milbemax (i think it was) which has ivermectin in it. I told her that no, I wanted the drontal as these were for BCs and I wouldn't risk the ivermectin. She proceeded to tell me about how she had had BCs for 20 years and they aren't affected, the only breed that is affected is Rough Collies. I simply told her I was more comfortable using the drontal and left it at that. I've now been thinking about it for days and regret not continuing the discussion with her and letting her know that it is in fact an issue in a number of working breeds, including shelties, aussies etc and not just RCs. I would hate to think she gave that information to someone with a different breed and it turned out to have the ivermectin sensitivity gene. We will be testing 3 of ours when we send off the swaps for CEA (sire was a carrier), figure it doesn't hurt to have the facts about our lines in terms of the MDR1 gene.

I don't use anything for fleas as I have never had an issue with them. We use advantix for ticks if we are going coastal or to Sydney, although Charlie will often get frontline instead as the advantix comes in 6 packs and we don't want to buy 2. Being shortcoated he gets the frontline and more rigourous checking. In all honesty, I don't know where the 6 month thing came from. It was something that was told to me (and many others) years ago and I've just stuck with it. If products such as interceptor are labelled as safe for pregnant bitches, whelping mothers and can be given orally from 2 weeks I'm not sure if people have perhaps changed their thinking or more research has been done into it? Canberra generally doesn't have to worry about heartworm and any mozzies around now would be frozen so our pups (9 weeks old) wont get interceptor for a few more months.

I thought interceptor included heart worm? Thanks for the help. I had my hubby talk to the vet and have pj put on something else. I really don't want to risk it even if it is a small dose of ivermectin. :) :) It does do heartworm but doesn't have ivermectin in it. We use drontal all wormers until 6 months then put them onto interceptor :)

I wouldn't. I think the latest figures are as low as 5% in BCs but still a risk as far as I am concerned. We use Interceptor on all of ours. It says it is safe to use from 2 weeks of age but we don't give any heartworm preventative until they are 6 months old.

Sometimes the best thing you can do is go with your gut instinct- what is it telling you to do? Forget the academics of it all and what you think they may or may not do, or what you think your dog may or may not do. Go with your instincts. You know your dog better than anyone else and if something is screaming at you that things aren't right then go with it. If your instincts are saying to hold off and see what happens then by all means do that. And then you get the peace of mind factor. Sometimes it is better just to take them in and fork out the cash then get absolutely no sleep yourself because you are so busy worrying about them, that they pick up on it and become uncertain and then don't settle themselves. Its a nasty cycle...

Just read that you are only 14 (I skimmed through the posts in a hurry earlier). I think you are doing a pretty great job for someone who has never done the sport before. Your little cocker doesn't look too bad either :) You 2 should have a blast when you start going to training classes. How often do you have access to your cousin's dog? Would they be willing to let you have a muck around training it? It would give you a feel for a different style of dog to train (and to run down the track) and you will get a lot out of it. Just a thought :) Good luck with it all, and given the time frame you are working with and your age you have plenty of time to get a feel for the sport and learn heaps before you look at your next agility dog. There are plenty of cockers in agility who absolutely love the sport, they are raised that way from a puppy and live for the game. So, if your family ends up with another pet in a few years time there are plenty of things you can do with a pup to instill the love of agility into them, regardless of their breed.

On the plus side, however, you could be waiting quite a while for a puppy from the breeder you want which gives you plenty of time to learn more about the sport, perfect your handling techniques, and borrow some fast working dogs to get a feel for them so you are ready when the time is right. Our current litter is 8 weeks old and there are people who have missed out on a pup that have been waiting for 4 years. They missed out on Link's 1st litter as she only had 4 pups, and then this litter she only had 3 so they still missed out. We had 9 definite homes lined up for this litter, with plenty of additional interested parties that we had made no commitment to (mating notifications etc). Some people have got other dogs in the meantime but are still happy to wait around for something out of one of Link's daughters when they are mated.

Definitely agree with this. I will never desire to own anything but a super high drive BC ever again, however, they are not for everybody. Our dogs run at about 6.5-7 metres/second on course (so that includes the actual jumping etc) which doesn't leave you a lot of time to work out what the hell you are doing :laugh: Only one of ours is a bar dropper, and that is pure laziness on her part as she is trying to get to the next obstacle too fast. The others rarely drop bars unless we do something ill-timed. Too many people around who want the fast dog, don't know how to train the fast dog, and end up with a dog that is very fast at spinning in circles and nipping out of frustration but not so fast at running in a straight line :) Definitely agree with this too. A dog is only a performance dog for a small percentage of its life, the rest of the time it is your pet. Our dogs are incredibly easy to live with but that has to be taught to them. I have no doubt that if they were in a pet home they would drive their owners absolutely bonkers. These are the type of dogs that typically end up in the pound as they are not stimulated enough. We (and many other breeders like us) are incredibly selective in who our pups will go to for that very reason. They are not for the novice handler and for most people they are not for a first time BC owner. There are of course exceptions to this and I have frequently watched handlers of slow dogs and thought to myself, I would really like to see that person with a fast working dog, their handling talent is wasted on their dogs. We would never sell to a pet home, even an active pet home, and would think very hard about selling to someone we didn't know. In the wrong hands these dogs could be an injury waiting to happen, to either handler or dog. In the right hands it is pure poetry in motion :D

NSW ANKC agility this is the nsw equivalent.