Mel774

When we got our goldie pup, we took a few weeks off to establish a routine. So in that time we left him for short periods, praised for quiet behaviour and slowly extended the time alone. This way he didn't go from all attention to no attention during the day. My OH took the time off and I continued going to work - so I was tempted to play with him all day! I felt so bad in the beginning, but it ended up being the best thing for him as he settled into his routine really well. I'd get up an hour early and play with him, get his breakfast ready and then go to work, then come back and play with him again. When OH went to work, he got fed in the morning and then before we left he got a bowl of dry food which he munched on during the day, then got dinner when we got home. The breeder started this routine with all the pups, so he never gulped down the dry, it was always just there during the day. We know he never gulped it because sometimes we'd come home and find a bit left.

Oh but it makes us mighty leaders feel soo good :rolleyes:

Best way I have found is to teach the pup that a person approaching = sit, without you even having to ask. 1: Have the pup on lead with someone holding them, the other person is the greeter. 2: Greeter walks up to pup and says hello excitedly as people do normally 3: When pup jumps - say nothing, walk away completely. You want to remove all contact and vision with the eyes, voice and hands. Completely ignore the pup. I don't even bother with an "aarrrghh" or anything like that because some pups are just so over the top with their jumping up and it doesn't make a difference. You're not punishing the jump - you are teaching that sitting is rewarding and jumping is boring. The pup hasn't done anything wrong by wanting to be near you, it just doesn't know any better at this stage. It's a bit hard to get the 'aarrgh' in when the dog has bitten your lip too (I have seen many a border collie owner with split lips!) 4. With food in hand, walk back toward the pup and ask the dog to sit. If the dog sits, give food. If it jumps - walk away again. You just keep doing this until the light bulb goes off. Some dogs will get it in three, some thirty - but I have never seen a dog not 'get it' fairly quickly. Then there are 2 other variables you want to work on - generalisation and duration. For example, many dogs will catch on very quickly to the sit, but then when you bend down to greet them - they jump. Continue the steps above and try to slowly draw out the time for reward (e.g. reward for a 2 second sit, then 4 seconds, then 6 etc - if the pup continually breaks, go back a few seconds). I did this with a pup a week or so ago and he stopped jumping on me altogether within 4 repetitions. However, when the roles were reversed - the pup jumped all over his owner. Dogs don't generalise very easily. So what you want to do is practice this set up with as many people as you can so that the dog learns that a greeting is always met with a sit. In every day life, never encourage the pup to jump up. Reward calm behaviour and pay attention to the good behaviour, not just reacting to bad behaviour. Get into the habit of having your dog sit before it receives anything - a doggy please if you will. Hope that has made sense, things are always easier explained in person so I don't know if I've missed anything. This has been tested on every dog I've taught and I've never seen it fail.

Oh Kirsty I'm so sorry I know how much Sam meant to you - he was an absolutely beautiful dog and you gave him a wonderful home to retire to. I'll always remember the first time I met him at the beach and he just lay in the sand having a snooze! Didn't move until the water got past his waist, then he would find another spot to sleep. Mum always watched the footy show so I told her that her grandson had spent the day with a celebrity RIP Sam You made a very brave decision. You and your hubby are in our thoughts.

My dog absolutely loves it. I buy Dr Billinghurst BARF Patties though, it's not straight roo meat. He loves the roo and beef and I usually give him his white meat in the form of chicken necks/carcass because he really hates chicken mince. We've fed him the pork ones before but he wasn't thrilled with them (he ate them, but personally I find the white meat mince to smell putrid and I'm ok with the red meat).

Yeah my golden rule as far as grooming goes is NEVER shave a dog with a double coat...ever.

If you like positive training, go with Delta. I for one have never allowed anyone to use check chains in my class and never ever will. If you want to learn how to train purely positively then Delta is great. I never had any intention of training any other way and Delta has been fantastic for helping me develop positive skills. I thought the course intensives were fantastic, loads of fun and really great information. Made lots of friends, can't wait to see them again next year! As someone who was already learning to train at a positive club, but looking for more ideas and an accreditation, I found Delta to be perfect. Loved it! A lot of the course fee is actually toward food and accommodation (they totally spoil you with the food too, it was awesome - much to everyone's shock!) and you pay in installments (roughly $500 every 3 months) From what I have seen on the forum, people who study/have studied through Delta don't have as much of a tendency to look down their noses at people who have done NDTF, which I cant say about the other way around. I rarely even use the training section for this reason. I think it's often biased training the other way.

I would NOT recommend Optimum as an alternative to anything!!! After seeing a little doggy sick on it... why? Because one of the main ingredients is soy. Another vet nurse confirmed too, that it was a soy based dog food and that her dog got a rash from it when he mum fed it instead of Eukanuba when they ran out.

I use all the methods that I train with my own dog, however I do a lot more with my dog than what I would necessarily train in class. Only because I teach beginners so I have to be careful not to confuse them.. which is easier said that done!!

Same answer here - never

Yeah its $950 deposit to get accepted and they take a maximum of 80 so I planned for the year ahead and made sure the day the intake opened I had my $950 ready!!!! There were a few people that borrowed friends dogs to bring down and once they got there realised it would have been just as easy (or easier) to not bring a dog at all. The only session I felt disadvantaged in for not having a dog was doggy massage, I was still allowed to have a go on other dogs but it wasn't the same working on a dog from start to finish. However my dog wouldnt have settled down long enough for the excercise anyway and I still learnt from it.

There's a variety really! They all all written, there is a lot of information in course readings provided and in the text books recommended. Stuff like first aid, OH&S, lesson plans etc, then there is the industry assignment where you have to interview people from every aspect of the dog industry (vets, groomers, kennel owners, breeders, everyone!). There are 2 video assignments, one is 20mins of unedited footage of your training class, the other is teaching your dog a trick that it doesnt know using targetting. It's usually about an assignment a month but sometimes there is a month with no assignment. I got lazy because there was no assignments in August but the OH&S assignment is due Sept 5th.

Yeah it's very easy to be enthusiastic about the assignments in the beginning then suddenly you cant find the time and get a NYC and it gets a bit sucky! lol! But I'm committed still and I WILL finish my latest assignment... at worst it's Gold Coast Show day on the 1st so I will stay home and do that all day lol I really have to get stuck into that practices one because it's due when I'm away for the wedding. I havent interviewed anyone

I didn't bring a dog to delta. My pup was only 8 months old. There was a lot more dogless people than I expected actually. Pros: FREE TIME! The course is not called intensive for nothing so on our 1 hour break for the whole day everyone has to take their dogs out for a walk and get them fed etc before dinner, whereas myself and the other dogless people were off taking hot showers mmmwooohahahaha You try to share the load too though, take someones dog for a walk if they need a shower or are trying to sit down and eat in peace etc Cons: Missing your dog SO much!!! Seeing everyone with their dogs makes every dogless owner soooooo jealous and sad!! I latched onto every retriever owner at Delta!!! After a few days of sooking about missing my lil man I was glad I didn't bring a dog. I had more free time and less stress than most because I wasn't worried about my dog the whole time. There were a lot that freaked out because it's a stressful experience for the dogs being in the crate room. I also found a lovely girl there who was more than willing to let me train with her gorgeous doggy Just find someone nice (she offered to me which was a relief, there are some who aren't so generous) and stick with them in classes so you can train the same dog. There are lots of lectures so it's not like your with the dogs 24/7

Well said!!!!!!!!!!!!! Couldn't agree more, I haven't been training for a long time and already I've seen the result of a very unregulated industry that needs far less people who train out of a text book and training their own dog

Out of curiosity how has the NDTF course changed since becoming accredited? When I was looking for courses Delta was the only one accredited and by the looks of NDTF they had a range of very short courses (like 13 weeks or something) where as Delta is a full 18 month course. Is it still the same, where you pick up different modules and do what the ones you want to do or did it have to change to become nationally accredited?? ETA: Oh other thing I wanted to know was is it available by distance education now? Delta is so anyone from any state can complete it without a problem as long as you can travel to Melbourne twice over the 18 months. When I looked into the NDTF course it was only available in Melbourne and I had just left. They said they were looking into offering it by D.E and would contact me when they did but they never got back to me. I wasn't that impressed with the organisation as a whole by that was a couple of years ago.

I couldn't speak highly enough of the course, I love it It costs about $3,000 for the whole course, but a fair chunk of that is boarding and food (mmm they spoil us so much!) at the 2 week long intensives they have in Melbourne. So you also have to factor in the travel costs down there for you and your dog. As for what doors it opens for you - whatever ones you open. You will have to find a place to train because it's a requirement to do so many dog training programs (I think a minimum of 8, 4-6 week training programs over 18 months and 2-4 puppy preschool classes). So you should find someone you can help out or think about starting your own classes if you have enough experience behind you. There are a lot of unqualifed instructors out there because the industry is not regulated. I would love to see more people knowing what they were doing!!! Being an accredited instructor gives you more confidence I think, that you have some formal study behind you and it can give other people more confidence in you if they've had some bad experiences. I taught a lot of people that have come to me after having other people tell them their dog is "untrainable" and they like knowing that I am keeping up to date with study and using only gentle, positive training. I have not seen a problem with a so called untrainable dog! Infact they've been some of my best students!!!!! If there's anything else you want to know, just give me a yell ;)

Krat if you want to ever go halves in a bulk order I'll be in it too! Maybe we could get a gold coast one up and running for anyone down this far that it interested. I'm really keen to try both the Edge and Weaner products

excellent thanks for that ML

Oh I'm interested in this one!! When is the delivery happening? Is it too late to order?? Biggest issue for me - is the stuff pre frozen? I hate it when companies offer good cheap meat deals but the meat is frozen, so it's useless to me feeding only one dog and needing to split the portions

Yup, we use the Labrador Retriever food and it's great! I love that the kibble is large so it isn't scoffed down, which I think could reduce the risk of bloat in large breeds. Very impressed! We buy it in 3kg bags but it lasts a while because it's fed with raw meat, bones, veggies etc. We have the frequent buyers card too and are due for a freebie bag soon. It smells like real food and my dog has been so much healthier on it. He was in danger of being overweight before, he's slimmed down a bit now and has done much better on it than other dry foods

Considering it takes about 20mins to squeeze the damn stuff into a syringe I wouldn't be putting it in my dog! It's SOOO thick, that drawing it from the vile is an effort and a half.

Blasphamy! hahah kidding There is usually a noticable difference in size between goldens and labs - they are not the same. They have the same shape bodies and same digestive systems though, they are related I'd say but I wouldn't keep them at the same weight, I have seen some Goldens (in particular the european style of the very large cream ones) much bigger than labs. Heck I've seen other goldens that tower over my golden! It's very much to the individual dog in a breed that has become so popular that there can be a huge variation between two dogs.

hehehehehe can't beat the smile of a golden!!!!