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Well done Bruno!!! You great big winner!!! It was good to meet Tim, Tanya and the lovely patient Bruno today. Turned out to be pretty good weather and the whole crowd was really well behaved at the million paws walk. I'm sure Jane thought all those dogs came out just to see her. She had a great time and it still thrills me having a dog that is sooo relaxed around others. A definite for next year!

sorry about last post...I tried to send a photo...obviously with no luck, damn it!!!!

Great...hope to see you there. We will be the ones with the naughty lab-like pup who will probably be trying to go the wrong way...sigh!

Just finished TLCs review on Brierly. Sounds like just what we are after as I'm not keen on choke chains after a bad experience with our old dog many years ago at Moorabbin. The trainer there decided that Megs fear aggressive behaviour should be fixed by dangling by her choke collar to show who was boss!!!! Very very traumatic and we never went back. Spent a fortune on specialized positive reinforcemet training with her after that that worked very well so I'm all for that method. We are off to the million paws walk tomorrow ( something we could never do with Meg) with Jane rain or hail or as predicted..both!

Thanks for the welcome everyone and the info, Tim and Tanya. I'll give Patricia a call tomorrow. Pictures I will send tomorrow as well if I can work out how!!! We are taking Jane to Puppy school at Colac as the Camperdown one dosen't start til June but the more the merrier as Jane is pretty high maintenance...sooooo much energy and absolutely no fear of anything!!! She a lab x smithfield and we love her to bits but its a huge change from a very sedate and predictable 14 year old we sent to heaven on Black Saturday after a long and progressive battle with spinal arthritis. The main problem we have with Jane is her ability to change from playful to over simulated and over tired puppy monster in a split second! She happily retrieves toys and then forgets about them and goes for anything that moves such as hands and feet and legs. We then give her time out and most often she goes to sleep....Abit of a learning curve for us as shes 12 weeks old and we have only had her for 5 weeks. In that time shes more than doubled both in size and in personality!!! So can any one tell me how good or bad the brierly school is????

Sorry about sounding like an idiot but I was wondering if you could help me with some training school info. I just tried to enroll my pup in the harris st school and was told that the next intake was July...Grrrr!!!! The lady did tell me that there was another place in Brierly but no other contact info. I'm newish to the area and live in Camperdown so I did a search on the net but didn't get very far. If anyone has a contact name and number and experiences with this club, I would be really interested to hear. Jane is 12 weeks old and I'm really keen to get some training done and to meet others to share the good and bad and really really bad times with a young energetic pup!!!!

I know how you feel and i think if you can get some advice sooner rather than later then you will be better for it. Our last dog went to puppy school at the local vets and spent the whole time hideing under the chair. We progressed to a local dog obedience and while she was great at obedience she was shocking at interacting with other dogs. We were continually told she would get better and that we had to show her who was boss!!!! Well she didnt get better she got worse and we ended up taking her to a dog psychologist to find out what we should do when she was 7 months old. Sadly we found out that the dog obedience was worsening her fear aggression as they (we) used a check collar which increased her fearfulness. As much as we wanted to do the right thing for her, we found that we had actually been doing the worst for her and it took many many months of positive reinforcement training at a specialised dog school to help but not cure her. She was a wonderful dog with us and other people and cats for 14+ years but she never interacted with other dogs due to this fear aggression. I would advise you to get your dog professionally assessed now so you can get and follow the right advice!

Its a tough call having to leave your new baby for so long but I'm sure you will all cope. We got young Jane 3 weeks ago when she was 8 weeks old. The first two weeks were school hols so she had someone around off and on during that time but we made sure she was left alone some of the day to get used to the eventual wook/ school routine. We found that Jane became very familar with the layout of the house very quickly and surprised us by learning to use the doggy door on day 2!!!. This week was her first week where she is home alone for 4 hours at a time( I come home for lunch which is now dedicated to 'young Jane time'). She has access to most of the house including carpeted areas as her bed is in my room and she likes to sleep there during the day. So far so good...just the occasional accident...She seems to have got the idea to go outside via the doggy door(Yah!!!) Toys...yep but if your dog is like ours then she will be more attached to other things such as socks, slippers and bloody brooms which she likes to fight with and drag about. I seriously thinks she sleeps most of the time she is alone so be prepared for some quality time with her before and after work. We take Jane out for a little 10 minute walk before work plus incidental training with food rewards. At lunch time its time in the backyard for more relaxed training including fun retrieval games and I also throw around sone cruchy food so she has to find it in the grass and after work we take her to to crater lake with a 10 metre line attached to her lead so she can run around or do whatever she likes without too much restriction on her freedom. Be prepared for the mad minutes of nutty behaviour before the final collapse into sleep and try not to make too much fuss when you leave if possible in order to reduce her anxiety. The hardest thing so far for us has been the broken sleep for toilet training overnight but thats short-term. Just remeber that the quality time you spend with her when you are home will more than make up for the time she is alone. Oh and congradulations in advance for a long, happy and action-packed life ahead!!!

Thanks for the suggestion...much appreciated. We thought young Jane might just be alittle ADHD! We don't have a crate and apart from the night time, she will take herself off to her bed in my room for a kip during the day and go to sleep really well. At night she turns into an obnoxious brat and chews and jumps on anything that moves. Tried the slow pats but she got over-stimulated with the movement. We will have ago at the ignoring thing and see how we go!!! Hoping its just a developmental stage...shes great with training and not worried or scared at meeting other people or animals so fingers crossed!!!

Just after some advice from more experienced puppy owners. Jane, our nearly 10 week old labby cross is a really fantastic girl. We have had her nearly 2 weeks and she has been a delight. The trouble is that she really fights going to sleep. She becomes really vocal in a whingy wiggley way. This can go on for about 10 minutes or so before she finally flops down under someones legs or under a bed or in her little kennel. Its almost like having an over-tired toddler( which is exactly what she is, I suppose). I'm assuming this is normal but I'm really not sure...she seems quite distressed at the time until she finally gives in to sleep!!! Any advice would be very welcome!

Wow!!! What a difference a 9 week old puppy makes!!! It was such a beautiful Easter sunday that I decided to take young Jane the black lab cross down to Port Campbell for a bit of socialisation and an intro to the beach. I was thinking it was going to be a lovely relaxed way to spend the arvo and introduce Jane to the lovely wide world. Well...Talk about popular...We couldn't go 10 feet without kids and parents almost mobbing us!!! Jane was great..relaxed and happy with no signs of nervousness wheras I found it all abit stressful but pretty cuffed at my girls laidback attitude. The beach was a dissappointment though. Just plonked her down on the sand with lead attached when we got told that if the rangers caught on I would be fined $200 for having a dog in a national park!!! Party poopers!!!

Thanks for the info, Jess and Helen. It looks like I might have a chat to the vets in Camperdown to see if we can get something going around here. Surely there are other interested dog people around these here parts!!! Jess, do you travel far to go to the Ballarat training???

Hi all! I live in Camperdown, South west Victoria and am planning on getting a retriever pup in the next few months. If anyone knows a good obedience/activity/social group in the general area I would love to hear from you. Thanks in advance.