RubyBlue

Can you put up a link for that please :)

Id reply "I have a friend in Griffith who has said he can pick the dog up today. He is in the police so totally dependable. What is your address?" May as well have some fun and make him squirm.

there are a few people who string the scammers along with extravagant stories of their own the post the entire thread. The best ones I read were a disembodied head in someones basement who was desperate to send the money but needed his body to get the money out of the bank. At one point he died but the scammer kept trying to get money from him. The other one was a guy who didnt pay for a macbook via the non ebay payment site he recommended. So the guy tracked him down and sent him a macbook worthy of the price paid.

congrats :) Both my dogs are sitting on one more pass for their next titles and I think Tassies got one more pass for her dogs next title too? Exciting times for all of us it seems. The weather is looking ominous - the season starts soon.

Wow that method sounds hard Megan. Someone once explained to me that the Schutzhund tracking test is more an exercise in obedience and precision than about finding the person. I do ANKC tracking and it is more about finding the person at the end - the first test you don't even need to find the article. We start off training with a favourite person revving the dog up with a toy or food reward, then the handler prevents the dog from 'seeing' where that person goes whilst they lay a short track with lots of articles (usually with a bit of food on them or half buried in them - to reward interest in the article). Every time the dog puts its nose down - particularly at an article it gets a verbal reward from the handler -but not so much that the dog comes back to the handler. The dog should be encouraged to lead the handler towards the tracklayer rather than the other way around - though initially the handler might need to point out the articles. When the dog gets to the tracklayer then massive massive jackpot. Start off with short hot tracks -20m or so - until you feel that the dog gets the idea that it is following the persons track to get to the person. Then you can start to stretch out the time and length of the track, add corners, cross overs etc.

Much better than the one where they are all facing the other way :)

He certainly seemed to love it. Sorry to hear about his passing. How far do they have to pull the weight?

Care to start it off Esky? I have a young lab who loves to pull. I am thinking it is a sport he might enjoy - but apart from some YouTube videos (....showing beefy blokes with their bully breeds in the USA - which quite frankly doesnt appeal all that much) really know nothing about it.

Dyson has happy dreams too - lots of tail wagging. He has one particular sequence where he starts growling which leads to a mournful howl - we call it his hounds of the baskerville impression. Milly does cute little "oofs"

It seems that cats have funny reactions to the thundershirt....

Good luck TSD :) Can someone please explain the difference between novice, restricted, open, all age, etc. Some sound pretty self explanatory but others not so much...

TSD said it was about time I posted in this thread...so here goes. Milly and I entered our first RATG trial last weekend. No pass this time unfortunately but a fantastic day out and boy did we learn lots. The first run was a huge swim which she did easily (and nailed the delivery :) ) But she completely missed the second run - which went down a ditch and up the other side into cover. She initially didn't see the bumper then got stuck hunting in the ditch. The judge was fantastic and got them throw another one for her which she missed again then he asked the steward to pick it up and throw it up in the air which thankfully she got. The judge was kind enough to offer for me to train with his group. So I went down today and we had a great time. He did some runs across a short creek then built it up the hill to get her confidence. Then we went over to the run she got stuck on from Sunday and slowly built back until she was doing (hot???) blinds from even further back than the start on Sunday. By the end she was super confident and absolutely flying through the scrub and really hunting well. Its such a shame it takes me an hour and a half to get there....I am going to aim to get to a group session a couple of times a month :)

Does anyone know where I can get a springer in Australia? Preferably the eastern states. I can only find one place that seems to stock them in WA.

Hi, on the day of the test, your dog must be a minimum of 2 years old, and not a day older than 8 years old. M Thanks - time to start training. Shouldnt take too long. We do a 6k walk most days :)

Hi all, I have been reading though this and last years thread in preparation for eventually doing this with my younger dog who turns 2 towards the end of the year. But since reading I've gone and got myself confused over the upper end of the age limit. I had always thought that 7 was the upper limit and having a dog that has just turned 7, I'd just assumed that she was out. Until I read that under 8 is the limit. If that's the case then I'd like to put her though too.

Tell her when she views the place to check that there are two beds if the dogs are to be boarded together.

If you are not going to take the dog back you need professional help. The longer you avoid it the more damage is being done to both dogs. Perhaps if you say what area you are in then someone on dol can recommend someone decent. Dogs are not horses or people. Experience with them won't help in a tricky situation like yours. There is also a big difference between experience training for dog sports and behaviour modification. Think about it, you wouldn't go to a maths teacher to help your child overcome a fear of heights???

Awesome - Em's very photogenic :) Lunch looked tasty too...

Ah - that explains the title on the pictures on fb. *goes back to check for action shots of Em*... no joy...bummer I was looking forward to some flying ears

Just wondering if you tried contacting 'The Project' to see if they'd be interested in covering it.

Never used anything like that but it looks like the walkabout back one would be much more comfortable for Sam. ETA Snap DD

Yellow lab puppy at dog club with the name "Moneybags"...go figure!!! Our first cat was called "Mog" and we had another cat called "Benz" - guess what dad really wanted for his birthday...

This fits my experience. Our old boy was on tramal for arthritis and had very similar symptoms to what you described (staring at the walls, he would also pant and look blankly around). I just assumed it was old age until my other dog had surgery and the vet had said about using the left over tramadol for her. She had exactly the same symptoms except because she was young and the contrast from her normal behaviour was so different I didn't put it down as dementia. I swear she was hallucinating. I have since spoken to people who have been on tramadol who said they found it weird. Personally I will not use it again.

Hi TSD - do you have any free time in the near future? Would like to enter milly but think we are both still a bit short of the mark.

That's awesome, I can't wait to see it...Fantastic work Em. Gonna have to get her autograph now :)