DeltaCharlie

I was a member of Springwood for years for agility and obedience, they don't really do flyball though. In the 4 or 5 years I was a member there they pulled it out once or twice. To do flyball, closest club would be either Parramatta or there are a few at Castle Hill. Springwood is a great club for obedience and agility though, they really do the foundations right (well they did when I was there) and branch off into trialling or fun classes once you have moved through the lower levels to cater for the serious competitor and the people who just want to get out and have some fun with their dog. Obedience is Thursday nights, agility Monday. They were trying to look at flyball Friday nights but they never really got the commitment and nobody there actually races flyball so they don't really know where to start I don't think. There are a few places local for obedience though. There is a club that trains at Cambridge Park/Kingswood area on a Sunday (?) morning. It is actually called Penrith Kennel Club or something along those lines. They are purely obedience and I have heard good things about them. I was going to join there when I lived at Cambridge Park but never got around to it, then moved 3hrs away LOL. I think there was also training at Penrith Paceway at one point in time, not sure what club or if that still runs though. I know you didn't mention agility but that is offered out at Londonderry by the Hawkesbury club. ETA Castle Hill offers all 3 sports however they are all under different clubs so no combined membership that I am aware of. Not sure what the obedience part is called but the agility is Agility Dog Club NSW and flyball is either Norwest Thunderdogs or Paws 4 Fun Flyball (both clubs use the same grounds but different nights).

Well, Tailwag is currently on the lounge with Brooks, Jaz, Dash and Sweep curled up on there with her. I am on the other lounge with Charlie and Delta. A very pregnant Link is crated beside me as she is rather hormonal at the moment, Rush is crated beside Tailwag munching on a nylabone and Whip is in a pen playing with a toy. The 3 who are crated/penned have just returned from a long walk. As far as one on one time goes, we do lots of trick training, short agility drills, etc with them. The younger dogs get more one-on-one sport specific training and the older dogs get more trick training, but everyone gets their time with us. The older dogs tend to get more snuggle time on the lounge etc as the younger ones prefer to play with toys in the loungeroom and entertain themselves. We try to give everyone fairly equal time out with us. The older ones are out during the night, the 3 youngest (for a variety of reasons) are crated at night.

I have a variation of that colour :laugh: It also appears in working dogs

We have 9 here at the moment and will keep 2 out of this litter (due in 2 weeks), taking us to 11. They all live in a 3 bedroom house with us and are entirely indoor dogs (other than supervised toilet breaks and enclosed veranda time in nice weather). They hang about in the loungeroom with us, sleep in the beds (or under them as the case may be), and generally just cruise about. We do have crates and pens set up around the place though so that if need be they can put away if they are annoying others etc, particular given that the young ones are quite boisterous and the older guys not so tolerant of the shennanigans :laugh: Everyone is either crated (bones) or put on individual beds in the loungeroom (wet food) at dinnertime and have to remain there for a few hours as we will not allow any play etc with full bellies, plus it prevents issues at feed time. The key to large numbers of dogs is routine and sticking to it. Ours know the routine very well and know the boundaries, right down to the order that they are usually put out to toilet :) They will wait at the gate into the kitchen until the dog before them returns up the stairs :laugh: Our ages currently range from 2yrs -13.5yrs with 2 pups to be added soon.

Border Collie litter due 15th March. She is looking rather fat and pregnant so pretty confident that puppies are in there :)

Not sure if this is what she was referring to but I personally like to teach the dog the little things myself :) I would prefer a puppy to come to me knowing nothing as I get joy out of teaching it to sit etc. Tailwag couldn't understand my reservations when she insisted on teaching our last litter to sit, stay, drop etc while they were still with us. All the puppy owners were very appreciative of it and commented to others on how much the pups already knew when they got them and how much easier it made them to train and raise, but I think if it was me I would have been a little disappointed that I missed out on doing it myself...

I apologise for the slightly off-topic question but there are others in here more knowledgeable than myself. I entered the BC world after DNA testing was available so it has never been an issue that I have come across. Is it possible for a DNA affected pup to not be showing clinical signs of impairment at 6 weeks and therefore receive a clear eye exam? Could that pup develop eyesight issues as it matures? EG would these pups need to be eye tested every 12months? 18months? I know it isn't a progressive disease as such, but can it be missed in the initial examination?

Ours swim in the dam when in season, no issue at all :)

What line was Emma? PM me if you prefer. worldpedigrees.com has lots of breeds and is great for Border Collies with over 150,000 dogs entered, especially the Aust/NZ lines. anadune.com is another very large international BC database. These are private databases and very well done but still have errors. The only official databases are maintained by the ANKC and parts of them can be bought on disk with owner details removed. We use Anadune quite a bit :) It allows you to not only input the pedigree and photos of dogs but also results from hipscores, DNA testing, colour genetics etc I love going back through the pedigrees to find out what information I can about the ancestors of our lines.

Sounds like this place :) Opened up a bag of sugar once that already had a Charlie hair inside by the time I opened it all the way :laugh: We tell people that it is extra protein :)

I used to just buy those cheap kids tunnels to train my guys on. Check out toy stores :) Chutes can be improvised with a sheet over a dining chair. The house I lived in when Delta was a pup had planks of wood in the yard so I placed them on a few bricks to get her used to walking along narrow planks.

http://whelpingsupplies.com.au/index.php?_a=viewCat&catId=40 Might as well support a fellow DOLer :)

He travels to a lot of the country towns etc too which is good. Not that you need it :) Helpful for us in Canberra though as he comes down here every few months.

We use Jeff Smith at the Animal Referral Hospital for opthomology stuff. He is great. ETA Given it is a repeat mating- were there any affected from the previous litter?

The only thing I can personally think of is that genetics seem to play a part in litter size (not always of course as there are so many other factors). Certain lines will average 3-4 pups, other lines 5-6, other lines might be 10. So I guess if that is a gene being passed through the lines if the dogs have similar lineage perhaps they are genetically predisposed to smaller litters? I wouldn't say that it is because you line bred as opposed to outcrossed, I would say it is perhaps more likely that in the past you have outrcrossed to lines that average larger litters?

We use the smaller one- 60kg perhaps? Plenty for what you would need. It takes all of our crap in one shift :)

2nd the Bunnings trolley suggestion. They are great and fold up flat which makes it easy to fit into the car. We usually have 2 large c-crate pens and 2 small wire crates to transport plus the bags, cameras etc. Oh, and 9 dogs LOL We would be lost without our trolley. I had a similar luggage trolley that I bought at Strandbags a few years ago but this one has bigger, sturdier wheels and is easier to wheel across grass.

We feed our guys turkey all the time with no issues :)

yes... there's bone healing/growth to consider.... I'd be hesitant to desex this dog until she was fully grown and fully healed.

Forgot to add to what I said earlier about the 6hr each way trip to meet Charlie (well it was actually to meet his brother but he was the better fit with me). Not a rescue but when I was looking at Whip I did the trip from Canberra to Sydney when they were 3weeks old to see the litter and get a feel for them. Then did the trip again at 6 weeks to see if I still liked the same ones and to narrow it down. He was one of about 3 stand-outs at 3weeks (mainly on personality at that stage) but by 6 weeks he was definitely turning into the build of dog that I was after while maintaining the same levels of playdrive etc that he had shown at 3 weeks. The other 2 were not as good- one was a much heavier build and the other not so drivey anymore. He was the perfect package and I am glad that I did the trip to see him twice :) I then went up again to pick him up at 10 weeks (couldn't get up there at 8).

Yeh, my neighbour has 2 of them (and has had plenty before that). Beautiful dogs too, leaner in build and very agile. Incredibly quick too. Some of the ones I have seen in agility would be queried as kelpie crosses I suspect if you didn't know what you were looking at.

Not necessarily :) We have working lined border collies and the lines that predominate in our breeding program (and in a pet male) seem to have incredibly slow maturing males. I am talking 5yrs old with some of them before they really start to grow a brain. The females are switched on from day dot though. Our last litter we used an outcross sire from faster maturing lines and all 3 male pups matured quite quickly. They are still more mature than Whip who is 5 months older (which was a big difference as puppies, not so much now that they are all 2). At 2.5 Whip is still 6months old in the head at times :laugh:

I drove 6 hours to meet Charlie at the carer's place. I took my Mum and Delta along for a roadtrip and ended up finding the best dog-friendly place to stay for the weekend and went back 3 months later with both dogs purely for a holiday! Some carers would be happy to travel, depending on the distance, but they certainly wouldn't be obliged to. ETA: That was 6 hours each way. Well... 6hrs to where we stayed, 30mins to the carers place, 30 mins back to place we stayed, then 6hrs home. He was not yet desexed so I couldn't take him home with me. His carer paid for him to be flown to me a few days later after his op, although I would have been prepared to drive back up again if need be. I can't remember what I was doing workwise at the time but pretty sure staying the extra few days wasn't an option.

Delta and Whip were on raw from the day I picked them up (8 weeks for Delta, 10 for Whip). The only thing with a puppy is that you have to be a bit more accurate in your quantities as their nutrients etc have to be spot on to help them grow properly. With adults you can be more lenient without issue. So make sure he is getting bones etc as they provide nutrients that meat alone will not give. We wean our litters onto raw meat (3-4 weeks) and start chicken wings at about 6 weeks. So your fellow should be fine :)

Australian accommodation places are actually pretty welcoming. We have 9 dogs (2 small, 7 medium) and have travelled all over the lower half of Australia with no issues whatsoever. We also regularly stay in motels with them for agility trials and most places are more than happy for them to be in the rooms etc and have fenced running yards and dog runs for if you want to duck to the shops. There are 2 places I know of in Queanbeyan where dogs are permitted in rooms, pretty sure on beds etc and one even had a swimming pool that the dogs were allowed to swim in. Never needed to stay there ourselves obviously, but many triallers stay there for Canberra agility trials.