pixie_meg

happiness is a stolen toy. :D

Welcoming in the New Year, my second water lily, it's the palest yellow. I am still hoping to see a pink and a red flower but I think I'll have to wait till next year for them.

Will have to check if mine our out.

Love the pregnancy shots too. cant remember whose those were.

heres my first contribution.

My 5 yr old found a faulty xmas baubel, a hairclip and some pheasant feathers and made a door decoration.

Oberon ran into a tree doing zoomies last night. he yelped in pain like you wouldn't believe. Hurt his shoulder but is fine this morning. Poor thing. Wouldn't deny him zoomies though.

I'd say that most sighthounds would be a pretty safe bet. I too like the idea of a rescue greyhound and probably would be a better companion than a pup.

Love that last shot especially.

it didn't go away but i did go get a second opinion on the ED suspicion. bit of a cross post.

The verdict is he must have fallen and hurt his elbowat some point then the bursa became inflamed. He's on anti inflammatories and has a bandage he needs to wear for 3 weeks. He cant walk well as the bandage is like a splint so he is such a sook. But such good news that this vet does not think its ED. She did a really good look over of him (which the other vet didn't) and checked his hips, no problem. She also said he's not skinny like the other vet said.

I read this before getting pup and implemented these things early on but to be honest my pup does not 'get' bite inhibition. He ignores yelps, cries, licking wounds, or even worse he gets excited.

A friend of mine bred Borzoi for many years and my experience with them is that they have extraordinary levels of prey drive, similar to a working line GSD (I own one of these). Yelping will indeed make them very excited, even compulsion (scruffing etc) will only serve to increase drive once they are in the zone.

The approach that has worked for me is to END THE FUN in a meaningful way as soon as biting starts and to mark the event very clearly so that there is no confusion about what it was that caused the fun to stop. In a NEUTRAL tone of voice, as soon as the mouthing starts say "too bad" then get up and leave the room, closing the door behind you. Leave pup to settle a little, as soon as he begins to settle, come back into the room.

When you do want pup to be excited, have something LEGAL for him to mouth. If he mouths the legal thing (tug toy, chew toy etc), play the game with him. If he mouths skin, immediately "too bad" then get up and leave, closing the door behind you, wait until pup settles.

Mouthing chew toy = fun

Mouthing human = fun stops

Make it black and white, don't push him away as he follows you to the door nipping at you (one of the many things he is very likely to do). Just walk off quietly and shut the door behind you, wait until he settles.

Playing tug can be a very useful game for this sort of pup, and will only enhance the message that you are attempting to get across, see:

http://www.clickertraining.com/node/727

Firstly i'm very sorry to have hijacked.

Aidan, thankyou. What you described is exactly what he is like. People say that when you ignore pup then he will stop playing. so not so. I'll be taking your advice.

By the sounds of it, your puppy is an active, intelligent and confident youngster, who probably knows you better than you do - and is running the show.

You need some help - not for the puppy, but for you! You need to get someone in who can assess your home situation and show you techniques to re-establish your position (which, by the way, you probably lost about 30secs after you bought puppy home!)LOL

In the meantime, I suggest downloading this and having a read!

http://www.dogstardaily.com/files/AFTER%20...our%20Puppy.pdf

Click on the link and the file should begin downloading.

Its by Neil Dunbar, and quite interesting.The blurb is as follows:

House soiling, nipping, growling, resource guarding, destructive chewing, excessive barking, hyperactivity, jumping- up, leash-pulling and general unruliness are reported as primary reasons why people surrender their dogs to shelters or let them stray (to be captured and taken to shelters).

The presence of these same behaviors is also a major reason why people do not want to adopt shelter dogs. Yet these typical puppy behaviors are so easy to channel or eliminate with the right tools and information.

AFTER You Get Your Puppy covers the last three developmental deadlines that your puppy needs to meet before he is six months old. Skills that will keep dogs out of shelters and in their original homes:

The most urgent priority — Socializing Your Puppy to People

The most important priority — Teaching Bite Inhibition

The most enjoyable priority —Continuing Socialization in The World at Large

I read this before getting pup and implemented these things early on but to be honest my pup does not 'get' bite inhibition. He ignores yelps, cries, licking wounds, or even worse he gets excited. And i socialise my pup with humans and dogs. We have rules. what to do hey?

I'm sure this works for most dogs but mine certainly is an exception.

He is mouthing - this is what pups do to explore their environment. Your job is to teach him to inhibit his biting. I'd suggest you teach him that he is not to place his mouth on you at all.

i hope this doesn't sound silly but how exactly do you teach them not to put their mouth on you and how long should it take?

I also have a 3 month old terror. We've been doing NILIF with not much success. The ifrst and only thing he wants to do is mouth and as soon as he sees the kids he wants to jump and mouth. We've been clicker training the last few days with some improvement but am really wondering if/when he will stop doing it. he's a bit snappy at us too like when i put him in the car and attach his harness. he's not impressed.

Any suggestions welcome, we're going to see a trainer soon. and we just started puppy school.

Great video! I love it when my boy does zoomies.

My dog is another picky one, but he only likes to go outside his yard, and he will face away from you so you can't see

Maybe Oberon is getting confused because he can go on the tiles at home so he thinks this is the toilet spot. Is there a reason he stays in the laundry while you're out? Do you have a fenced yard that he could be in?

Otherwise maybe you could try putting a patch of fake grass in the laundry with him and encouraging him to use that instead. Might help him associate the right surface to toilet on?

Unfortunately he got out of the dog yard and then out of the outer fenced yard one day while we were out.

I could try bricking up the spot under the fence, but i'm just worried he will get out again. The whole house is tile or floorboards so when he has a woopsie thats where it is. Could try the fake grass but i'm thinking he will know its fake grass.

I have no answers for you sorry..

Just think it's cool to know there are other dogs who won't 'go' in public!!

Kind of funny isn't it. silly things.

Anyone out there with suggestions?

Oberon has been great with toilet training. Just one problem we discovered this week is that he doesn't like to toilet in public. I've taken him to town and he has never wee'd or poo'd. We've been out for hours and nothing. We get home, and he does his business.

Problem was this week he was in Brisbane with OH for the last few days and not once did he wee or poo outside. He went to a dog park, nothing, outside the building, nothing. He did all his business on the tiles inside the office within 5 minutes of getting back inside. Not pleasant for the staff.

At home when we're out he stays in the laundry and if he needs to he wees or poos on the tiles.

So any suggestions to get him ok with doing his business out in public? OH wants Oberon to be an office dog but if he doesn't get used to toileting outside the home then that plan might be over.

maybe ask your vet.

I'm at Maleny, so a bit away from Noosa but what my vet told me was that parvo up here atleast is more common in the low socio economic areas. Noosa being a high socio area i'd say it would be fairly safe. If your pup has had her 12 week vax i'd say she'd be fairly safe anyway.

We've got the same problem here. I've had a lot of advice. Nothing really seems to be working. With our eldest who is 5 we have been teaching her to be dominant over pup when he gets too playful. eg, not backing away, walking toward him, staying strong, not squealing. Its a long process since she is young and not squealing when a pup is coming at you is tough. but i'm seeing improvements from both dog and kid. My 3yr old is another matter. So i think the biting is both kid and dog problems so you need to go from both ends. Just remember pup just wants to play, its natural.

We tried telling him off, time out, ignoring play, growling, forcibly stopping him. just my experience but the kid enabling response seems to be working.

sorry to hear of your loss. how tragic.

I'll tell OH to keep distance between them. I don't think Lulu (the other dog) will be over the top but OH is under strict instructions for the best interests of Obi.

Oberon will eat dirt occassionally. He gets excited sometimes and goes after one specific spot, taking out the grass roots and thenhis nose digs in the dirt. its like he's searching for something.

Oberon has had the unfortunate experience at 11 weeks and 12 weeks of having a couple of dogs lunge at him from behind a fence barking aggressively. He responded by yelping and backing up/running away. He seemed to recover well after the first incident but yesterday it happened again at 12 weeks. He saw another dog minutes later, that i know is friendly and he was scared out of his witts. For the next couple of days he is at work with my OH in Brisbane including nights. There is a friendly lab x poodle there who really wants to be friends but Oberon is freaking out. I'm worried that the last incident may have triggered some permanent fear.

So i'm wondering, how should my OH approach Oberons fear with this other friendly dog. any suggestion welcome, i'd really like Oberon to know that there are nice dogs out there. He also starts puppy school on Sunday.

Ok, a bit obvious and cheesy But I'm getting warmed up...

love the first one especially and have to say i am way too excited at seeing a modern cloth nappy. my last forum addiction was a cloth nappy one, alas my kids are out of nappies now.

At this rate it will be gone by tomorrow.

c5 vax at just under 12 weeks. a couple of hours after his shot he was whimpering, didn't want to get up, was yelping when touched or picked up. He continued to whimper in pain through the night and was tender for a few days afterwards. His skin also went red all over.

Poor Oberon I hope he is feeling better now Pixie Meg and has no lasting side effects.

Much better now, i'd say back to normal. only time will tell. we gave him some Thuja (a homeopathic) thats suppose to remove toxins from his body.

c5 vax at just under 12 weeks. a couple of hours after his shot he was whimpering, didn't want to get up, was yelping when touched or picked up. He continued to whimper in pain through the night and was tender for a few days afterwards. His skin also went red all over.