RubyBlue

Really?? Awesome generalisation there! How so?I've no wish to deny any family the joys of having a dog, but it is not cheap. And if your beloved pet gets ill, vet care is very expensive. On a purely financial note it is a better investment to secure healthy pup from a quality breeder. The suggestion that they won't care for it properly and will dump it, might have been the 'awesome generalization', that was in contention. I must admit. I found it offensive. But that's my tough bickies. Right? Unfortunately such owners exist. Pointing out their existence is neither a generalisation nor offensive. I find it offensive too. It is one thing to say that there are such people out there, but instead you are implying that budget is a predictor of moral values. There are a lot of people on this forum with very limited income and it think it is fairly safe to generalise that dol members are good pet owners.

Which is why I love the dremmel. Bulldogs are immensely strong dogs and using clippers was just proving so unreliable if they tried pulled their foot away. And with a dremmel you can get such a nice tidy nail with no sharp bits. If you do happen to get too close to the quick the wound is cauterized straight away with minimal fuss. Our first Bullmastiff had very long nails with long kwiks as her nails had hardly been trimmed before we got her and cutting her nails proved to be way too risky(black nails as well which made it harder to see the kwik) My white Bulldog has unpigmented nails so you can see the kwiks but I still prefer to use the dremel. My Bulldog bitch will just lift each foot while I dremmel away with her nails. Getting them used to the dremmel can be done with training. My boy doesnt like it but he is told it is happening and that is that. He is such a womans blouse :laugh: Brilliant post. Ive used a dremmel for several years now as my dogs have thick black nails. I have been shaping my new boy to it and he nearly at the point of comfortably letting me do his claws without any restraint, at the moment we are getting one or two done at a time. My girl sprawls on her back during her pedicure. Only thing is remember to wear eye protection. Claw dust in eyes hurts.

How scary for you. I had a moment like that where someone I was walking with threw a ball towards the road. Chasing a ball is one of the very few situations where I don't have a reliable recall with my dog. My suggestion is to practice the recall in that situation. Put her on a longline and do recalls for high value food or toy rewards in the paddock during your lunch break.

My car's bad too. I really notice the pong after I finish my courier shift - I get out of a nice clean car and into mine and I swear I can almost feel the dirt in the air cling to me. So I usually drive home gagging with the windows down. Any other time I don't notice it. The smell blindness thing fascinates me...

I would make sure that he won't have to share a pen with another dog. He might be friendly with other dogs but that doesn't mean that the other one will be too. I would also avoid places where the dogs can see each other all the time.

You could try swimming her. I take mine to a dog pool weekly and the difference it has made is incredible. I take them to the nearby off lead dog park for a couple of hours in the evening and they are still charging around for several hours at home afterwards. Half and hr in the pool and they sleep the rest of the afternoon. It is also seeming to have a cumulative effect on reducing their overall energy levels.

hmm so are all those bitches still cycling but not falling pregnant....pyo is not a nice way to die.

I have some recordings of Saturday afternoon too. Will see if I can figure out how to get it from my phone to computer.

Im waiting till the treat pouch comes out too. I have to say I preferred Friday. I had never heard of the beagle study before.

Mine was on Royal Canin Lab Junior when I got him from the breeder. He did well on that then the breeder switched her to Eagle Pack Large Breed puppy so I did too. I wasn't happy with it as I needed to feed 6 to 7 cups a day to sustain him so I switched him to Hill Science diet puppy at around 8 months. He is now 15 months and is on Hills active. I don't feel it is suiting him as well as it could so am thinking of switching him back to Royal Canin when I next run out of food. Nekhbet - I have never seen a lab chew kibble. I tried large breed TD with my last one when his teeth were getting a bit bad and he still swallowed them whole. I either soak mine and freeze it in a kong, put it in food dispensing toys, or feed it with water which slows them down a bit. If I put just kibble in a bowl they nearly choke themselves scoffing it.

Anyone going to the Melbourne one? I am but thought I would have heard from them or got some additional information or at least confirmation by now.

Hey RB, you could always teach them to wait, leave them in a sit, walk out throw the dummies, walk back to them then send them, by then they should b really excited! You can also do doubles like this. What a brilliant idea :) *thinks ... thinks...* I watched TSD do this with Em... !!! Having read up on the rules for RATG the distance for novice is about 70m...my little madams going well beyond this anyway lol

Glad to hear you are having a good time TSD. I actually got out and did some retrieving training today. It may have been neglected for a while (I have range of excuses - some good, some not.) Going to have to get back in the habit of training regularly. Was glad to see that they hadn't forgotten anything. It even seems that Dyson has finally figured out the marking business but I clearly need to do a lot of work on building distance with Milly. I don't often get someone to throw for me so was thinking that increasing the distance using blinds might be the best way to go??? How does everyone else do it?

Peter, Janet, Barbara, Colin, jack, George, Pam. And Scamper but he was a Goldie I think. Cocker The goldie was in the famous five - just blanked on his name. ETA - Timmy and apparently he was a mongrel, I had it in my mind he was a golden.

It sounds like you need a good management plan in place. There have already been a lot of good trainers/behaviourists recommended that will be able to help you with that. I personally try to get my dogs at least one physical outlet, one mental outlet and some entertainment each day. I have found that if I don't provide enough (entertainment) things for my dog to destroy then he will find them himself - which sucks if I wanted to keep that particular plant. I tend to buy the less destructible toys for value for moneys sake but find that typically food dispensing ones hold their attention longer. There are heaps of food dispensing toys other than kongs on the market now. I have several and tend to put a small amount of kibble in each. I also scatter kibble like chook feed over the lawn for the dogs to forage or hide it around the garden and teach the dogs to find it. I have also started free shaping my boy for his kibble. It gets him thinking which tires him out more than anything else. (He went for a 30min swim this morning after which the guy assured me he will be out like a light for the rest of the day - my other dog is but 'the feral' has since destroyed a blanket and a pot plant and is still charging up and down the hallway 4hrs later :p). Frozen marrow bones also give me 1.5 to 2hrs of peace. If I were you I would also look into DAP collars and relaxation music and perhaps, if you haven't already, crate training for your own sanity.

how many girls are there? -Vesper -Jinx -Elektra all seem like good (slightly more subtle) bond related names

What is the vet wrap and weights for?

Hi JozMan, I am currently working in a boarding kennels and cattery over Christmas and can already see huge flaws with the design of the set up. I throughly recommend you spend some time working at atleast a few places to get a feel for what works and what doesn't. There is another girl who also works there who wants to set up a cattery and is doing a tafe course in a that area - that is an option for you to study and learn a bit about the industry. She has seen several cattery designs as part of her course. As someone who is considering setting up something from scratch you have the opportunity to become familiar with latest research on reducing stress and boredom and should consider working in several strategies into your design.

Mine often sleep on the floor next to their beds too. They also don't particularly like the trampoline beds,they will occasionally go on them but seem to prefer the pavers, grass, floorboards, backsteps, etc. If they tend to lay in one place a few times I often move the trampoline bed there for them but they just lay next to it then too. Maybe try a foam type bed for him to get a bit of cushioning between him and the concrete. At the end of the day if you give him the choice, he'll work out what feels best to him.

It is very much a personal decision based on pros and cons specific to your situation. I got my bitch speyed when she was older (3ish) I had booked her in but had to wait a few weeks after her last season and (typical murphys law) unfortunately she developed pyo so the spey was rather more expensive than initially anticipated. Im into dog sports so having a dog well developed structurally is important to me. I am also fairly observant and have managed to pick up a mammary growth in my dog when it was half the size of a pea. If you spey after shes had a season I'd advise you to check monthly. FYI - mammary chain removal is really really painful surgery to recover from. I spent the first night sitting on the floor holding Milly in a standing position so she could sleep. Laying down put too much tension on the skin around the wound.

I found with my feral that extended eyecontact seems to trigger a face leap. If I don't move quick enough I get slag all over me. I try to break the eyecontact by either looking away or allowing him to break or distracting him with a treat or toy. We're working on building up time.

Lol - I thought this had been done recently.

So you already have two dogs??? When I got my lab puppy my 5 yo (titled) and supposedly well trained lab was more than happy to run amok with him. Things that she'd never shown interest in before were suddenly great fun to run around shredding. At least I felt comfortable raising my voice cause I knew she could understand. But they certainly egg each other on. The moulting is bad but two lab's are still nothing compared to one leg on a gsd :p

I recently put some beer in a snail trap - Dyson was trying to get at it whilst I was doing it. I brought them inside and had forgotten about it when I let the dogs out to toilet later. Turns out Dyson hadn't - he'd plucked the trap out of the ground and drunk all the spilt beer!!!! Typical teenage boy!