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Thanks for all these suggestions. I will check them all out. It's great to now what I should be looking for — I really had no idea.

The title says it all. My girl Martha is nine weeks old today. I know of a few classes near me — the North Fitzroy vet has a class, and my local pet shop, which is Petarazzi in Westgarth, does too. But I'd love to hear some personal recommendations. Or places to avoid, of course! Thanks in advance.

Thank you Tess. I actually did think there must be something more to it than that, because from what I've read some trainers are very keen on it. Does it take the dog long to learn what the click means? I imagine if I tried it now Martha would find it distracting. I imagine consistency is the key — does that mean if you start with the clicker you're really committing to training with the clicker in the long term?

Clicker training. Should I bother? I do want to take training seriously. Martha is already a genius. She is only nine-weeks and she's learnt sit, stay, leave it, take it, high five and she's ok with down although she won't stay put. :: beams with pride :: On the other hand, she has a big range of horrible behaviour — shredding my skin with her puppy teeth, suggesting she sit on my lap and share my dinner — that I'm trying to train her out of. I've read a bit about it, but I don't quite see why some people rave about it. So what are the pros and cons? Thanks in advance for your advice.

I buy Martha's Orijen puppy food from Petarazzi, which is on High St, Westgarth in Melbourne. I've never fed her anything else. I did a lot of reading and I'm convinced it's the best food. I didn't even realise it was faddish. I'd like to feed her kibble in the morning and raw food at night. Do others do this? Is this a good way to go?

I did a huge amount of research on foods when I got wee Martha. I now feed her Orijen puppy food. Pedigree sources its protein from corn. This is doggie junk food, and not recommended. I found the website Dog Food Analysis really helpful. The best thing I learned was that you should read all the ingredients of your dog food up to the first fat. These are your main ingredients. These should be NAMED meat (e.g. "beef" rather than "meat") and named meat meals, and some vegetables. Orijen has 42% protein, which is somewhat controversial. Some people believe this to be excessive protein for a larger breed because the pup will grow too fast and consequently be at risk of developing hip dysplasia or other joint problems. It is a point you can find argued about all over the interwebs! I read a lot and came down on the side of thinking that the quality of the protein is more important than the amount. There are some excellent threads about protein on this board. This one particularly helped. I'm not a huge advocate of high protein diets. Martha doesn't have a hip certificate and I am terrified of her getting Labrador Hips. And Orijen is expensive — I pay $25 for 2.5 kilos I think. But after doing the research it just made sense to me to feed her a good quality meat-based kibble. Ultimately, it's a personal decision. Other people will have different ideas. My best advice is that you can't do too much research. I'm considering Orijen kibble for breakfast and raw food for dinner when she gets older. Oh, and one more thing. Martha was on Pedigree at the breeders. I don't know if it's a lab thing or if she's just particularly iron-stomached but I changed over really quickly. Within days. She absolutely loves Orijen and has never looked back.