Mrs Rusty Bucket

If that's right - every dog I've met including mine is dominant. Mine has been called an "omega" dog. She crawls into every greeting and rolls over and even pees sometimes, seems very submissive. Except when she's hunting in the hedge and she's in it for herself and I have to go get her (or hide and freak her out). She will quite happily take over leadership in any group of dogs or people or mix if nobody else steps up. She doesn't challenge though if some other dog says they want the whatever, she's very happy to hand it over. Although sometimes she insists on a game of chase-me first. And she has displayed some peacemaker behaviours as she matures. Is fascinating to watch. And is yet another reason why I have a hard time with the conventional definitions of "dominance".

I'm not into pack leader or being dominant over my dog... but this is my take. There is the dog that all the other dogs defer to. The one that can break up any fight play or serious, just by growling a bit and running between the fighters, forcing them apart. All the dogs defer to this dog, they give him space and don't argue with him for resources. At the same time, he doesn't boss the other dogs around at all. He only asserts himself when he considers it absolutely necessary. The one at our local park is a 13 YO GSD. I've also heard this kind of dog called a "peacemaker" or "peacekeeper". And then there is the dog that their humans call "dominant" but I would call obnoxious, untrained and feral. This is the one that has had no limits or boundaries set on its behaviour since early puppihood. It fights everybody dog and human for resources, food / friends / toys / position etc. It may be a really enthusiastic humper and doesn't stop when the "owner" tells it. It is constantly picking fights with all the other dogs at the park. And is generally no fun to be around for anybody. The owner usually blames it on it being "a dominant dog".

future dog trainer it would help if you could post the releavant rules for Victoria not NSW since Vic is where Narre Warren is. But like I said - good luck figuring out what the Victorian rules are/mean.

Went to Gawler (SA) for the Mock trial and offical measuring. Got lost. Eventually found right place. Got dog measured - she decided she was going to squat instead of standing up straight but a large amount of fresh cooked sausage plus being in the middle of the height range for 500 jumps sorted this. And we'd been practicing forever and the practice last Wednesday went well... Ran in Agility Novice standard mock, and stuffed it up. And dog peed on course. I went to the toilet before we ran but she didn't, sigh. Not like we didn't try but I will have to do better next time. It was a very intimidating couse and the things I thought we'd get right like going through the tyre in a straight line between two ordinary jumps - we stuffed, but the things I thought we'd stuff up, we got right, like coming out of tunnel and having fun scramble closest instead of turning back to less fun jump. There was a lot of "distractions" ie you'd do one obstacle and there would be several in front and only one would be right. Jumps were correct distance from one to the next but another bit of the course would be right next to the bit you were doing now. We didn't stuff any of this up. Woo hoo. We did miss some contacts - got some work to do there, and the weavers were less than wonderful, but I knew that would happen too. She did not nick off to say hello to her friends or go sniff - wooo hoo. I have mixed feelings about the course. Having done way better than I thought, the next challenging course I encounter will not be so intimidating. Which has got to be a good thing. I also need to pay more attention to the little things that are usually easy. Ran in Jumping novice. Went much better. I think it would have been a clear round / pass if it had been a scoring comp. Only one minor point of oops - where I forgot where we were going next (got it right) and she gave me a hurry up on the bum. Some more work to do there. Ie I should learn the course and then run it as fast as I can as part of "walking the course" cos dog is not going to accept anything less. And I should quit "rewarding" hurry ups. Maybe a "drop" would work as an incompatible substitute behaviour.

I find the geckos are less interested in being in the house if I remember to turn more lights off at night. I think it has to do with attracting insects and the geckos follow the light and hang round there. You could try training the dogs to leave the geckos alone or putting gecko hidey spots up above dog reach so the dogs can't see them, though they can probably still smell them. And I do find that the door squish method effective in um getting rid of them too. I guess you must have many more than I do. I kind of like them and agree finding mushed gecko feels sad.

Greg Derrett's Agility Foundation Skills. And ... Shame about the Handler

Surely, at that price, someone would just steal the collar and feed it a new sim and sell it?

I can't figure out what the vic dog laws mean, they're so convoluted, but every other state - has an exception for dogs biting in defence of their own property. Ie what was that person doing at the address where the dogs could reach him/her? I really don't like the idea of council entering my house with out my permission to seize my dog when I'm not home. Even the police need a warrant authorised by a judge and probable cause and the say so of a neighbour who hates dogs is not probable cause.

I haven't had any problems either. I think if the skin is professionally tanned then it's good with quarantine. Ie the same deal as if you came back with a fur coat/leather coat or shoes from OS. It's the untanned skins on the african drums that get taken away and burnt. I managed to lose both my rabbit fur tugs in the last week. Not happy. Dog loves them.

How old is your puppy? 1. Do you ever use punishment in agility training? And if so, what type? Sometimes I say "oops" or "try again", and depending what we're doing I reset the dog ie if she's broke her start line stay, I make her sit /stand or turn her in a small circle by the collar and set her again. But I don't let her "go". Also if she's quick to bring back the tug, or she does an exercise really well, we have a really good excited longer than usual game of tug, and if she's slow, we have a short game of tug. 2. Do you follow a similar reinforcement schedule as in obedience (continuous - intermittent - random)...or do you reinforce the behaviour every single time? I try to chain stuff (get her to do several things for a reward), but when we're first learning something, I reward every time she gets it right, and try to make getting it right easy, and sometimes jackpot when she gets it excellent. Some things I reward with a treat and sometimes I reward with tug or chase. 3. What are the best training techniques (flooding, luring, guiding, mimicry, targeting, shaping etc) to teach a dog to weave? ...the weaving one has got me stuck! lol I use a combination of SG's 2x2 weave training and luring or guiding. Was progressing really well until she broke all the poles (skinny bamboo plant stakes). Now I have to get/make some new stronger weave poles. I guess that's essentially shaping, starting with two poles and building up to 4 poles then 6 poles, lined up so they're easy to get right to start with and with a focus on getting the entry right from any angle and building accuracy and speed. The world champions like Susan Garrett would not start a dog on weave pole training until it's fully grown physically ie 14 months old or older for a BC. And some of the obstacles are not for puppies either. But there is a heap of foundation training you can do before the dog needs to see a single piece of agility equipment like start line stays, and gos, and shadow handling (the dog is your shadow and learns to follow your body language). Recall, tug, and body awareness are more things a puppy needs to learn which help in agility.

JulesP I'd phone first. But you can always try your local church or rotary charity group. They don't get as swamped as the big charities.

I sometimes refer to other people at the dog park as this dog's parent (mum or dad). I use "boss" often but sometimes that's up for debate. And I refer to myself as EH's Boss or Bitch depending on who I think is running the show at the time.

I wouldn't even play tug, if we didn't have give/geddit sorted. Retreive though - I think I will have to use the 50 point breakdown to get that reliable. Sometimes she does, and sometimes she doesn't. Mostly she chases the object, and then does one of several things like - a few victory laps, sitting down and ripping the fetch object to bits, or just wandering off to do something else, or comes back to me without it, and every now and again we string a few where she comes back with it - whoo hoo. Not interested in jackpot treats at this point, just another throw. Sigh.

we used traps for mice, like small possum traps, when doing flauna surveys for the SA museum. Mouse can't get out and is unharmed - unless it is id'd as a feral in which case the scientist dispatches it. http://www.traps.com.au/sherman.htm "Elliott traps" You still have the slight problem with the live rat to dispose of. We baited them with peanut butter. I heard a guy talking about secondary poisoning in an Adelaide ABC gardening show. He recommended Racumin over Talon. Racumin is slow acting and a dog or cat that eats a mouse or rat that has eaten this poison is much less likely to die, or you have much more time to get your pet to the vet to get treatment than if it eats talon blocks or a few rats that have eaten talon. The trouble with the wax blocks is that rats carry them away from where you put them, and you don't know if the dog will get a whole block then.

I phone the Australian Refugee Associaton - in Adelaide, they're not nearly as fussy as the well known charity op shop people. Stuff must be clean and functional but it's going directly to homes to people who have nothing, not for sale in second hand shops. They generally won't take bed mattresses, but they took the one I had which had been barely used, unstained and lived on the spare bed ie nobody slept there on a regular basis. They made it really easy for me to donate stuff. Came and got it with their own truck. And they're all volunteers. If they didn't want it, the stuff was going to the dump, sadly. http://www.ausref.net/cms/ There are probably similar organisations in your state, that they can put you in touch with.

I have to do at least two laps around any new space with my dog before she's done checking that it's all ok and she can pay attention to me. I usually do the first lap on lead - so I can see it's ok too.

when I got my puppy, I just picked the friendly one who liked playing with me... http://www.volhard.com/pages/pat.php I saw an interview with Tony Parsons who wrote the book for training kelpies. He said he picked the dog that liked being with him.

What like waders? You can try the boating shops for some "wet weather gear" and get some waterproof pants. Or a lot of camping shops have gators tho they're usually short ie you might as well wear gum boots. I sometimes wear waterproof pants with gumboots. http://www.seatosummit.com.au/showproduct....ategory=Gaiters What you are looking for are called "gaiters"

Reminds me of the dramas I used to have trying to get my (now departed) horse to eat his worming meds. He could sift it out of his food even when you put pollard in (like flour). And the tubes, he'd just stand up on his back legs so I couldn't reach. I used to core out an apple and hide the tube in that, or use a brown lunch bag (since he liked the smell of my lunch) to hide the tube or line him up under a low hanging tree and spring it on him. In the end I gave up and just got the vet to give him a shot which seemed to be more acceptable to the horse. If it was me getting the needle...no way. I put my evil hound's wormers inside sardines that were tinned in olive oil. In bits small enough that she's eaten them before she's figured out what happened, or I make promite sandwiches out of them.

(dogs at cafes) I've done extensive internet searches about this and all I could find is that "animals are not allowed in food preparation areas". So a dog sitting in the eating area - is not breaking this rule. And in fact, guide dogs (for blind people) are not allowed to be refused. And I think the rules are beginning to include disability help dogs besides just dogs that assist blind people. Same with hotels. While a hotel might choose to ban dogs, it isn't for "health reasons". Really, we're much more likely to get "health problems" from other humans than our dogs.

That's one scary idiot. Sorry, I couldn't resist. Sometimes if we don't laugh, we'd have to cry.

I think it would depend on your soil. Bicarb reacts with acid things like vinegar, and fruit juice, so if the soil is acid, not to mention your chlorinated town water, it won't last long if you water it in.

Recall C'MONNN Dog looks up, Yikes, the boss is running away, arrRRRRRGGGHHHH, dog runs back to mum at full speed! I call her and if she's not coming back, I run. I'm getting quite fit. She gets treats when she does come back but we don't practice quite often enough for it to be automatic without thinking. However the cue of me running away is. Occaisonally doesn't work as planned if she decides someone else in the vicinity is me, ie same colour shirt on or something. She gets a hell of a shock when she gets to them and finds out they're not me...

I use talcum powder to deter ants, and I've seen lots of grey nomads doing the same thing, we put barriers of thick layers of the stuff all around our camp sites and car and trailer wheels and tents and under the crate.... Of course I'm sorely tempted to use the ant and roach poison powder but I suspect that's not so good for me or the dog. I add 1 to 4 teaspoons of bicarb to the washing powder slot (with the washing powder in 1/4 the recommended dose), and half a cup of white vinegar to the fabric softener slot (no fabric softener) for clothes washing And I use bicarb in cooking - most spectacular in the boiled fruitcake recipe ie you add bicab to the boiling wet mix of sugar and fruit and whooosh... And there's some fun things you can do with coke/lemonade and bicarb. Rockets.

http://www.dolforums.com.au/index.php?showtopic=79864 http://www.dolforums.com.au/index.php?showtopic=26002 It usually involves an electric collar for the dog, and a wire or sensor system that triggers the collar if the dog gets too close. And you MUST train the dog to understand what to do when it gets zapped or it may panic, jump the fence and bolt ie the exact opposite of what you want to achieve. The systems usually come with instructions about how to do this. And the electric collars are illegal to use in some states of Australia. And there is always a risk of a dog being strangled by a collar that won't break off the dog.