bumpties

I had a similar issue with my boy a few months back - he started lunging at every second car and making it very difficult to take him for walks. We started off sitting by the road, and for every car that was coming our way, he gets a treat. Once you establish some positive association, only treat for cars that he doesn't lung at. Me been a first time dog owner, didn't really know any better, so it took us a few weeks to get it under control, but our walks are manageable now, he gets fed on our walks. He now will signal me by making eye contact if there is a car that will make him 'tick', and I reward him whilst the car is driving pass. On the rare occasional, I see a loud truck coming (that I know he will lung at it) I will pull out a high value reward and put it in front of him and make him chose - can't eat and bark at the same time. And if it fails, I take away the reward and ignore him for a few moments before resuming our walk. I reckon it may be quite a while before I completely stamp out the undesirable behaviors, but there have been significant improvements in his behavior. I hope this helps. edit: for terrible spelling. Also to add the cars that make him 'tick' are the loud ones.

Ziwipeak works great over here - I do a lot of feeding/training on walks and need something that won't go off (especially in hot weather) and won't oil or slime up my hands (the venison and fish variety seem to have the stiffest texture compared to the others). Also found that my guy sometimes chokes on kibble when we train but the ziwipeak jerky stuff he can swallow with no dramas. As a side note: if you spill a bag of kibble - it rolls everywhere! Jerky stays put.

Check out your local Crazy Clarks stores. I brought a new one this week - http://catalogues.crazyclarks.com.au/porta...p;source=search

I've recently acquired a good amount of dried kangaroo bones. Whilst my little one loves to chew on them, all that cracking noises he makes when eating them makes me wonder how they differ from raw bones in terms of cleaning teeth goes and if they are more likely to splinter?

My J spitz boy has a mattress that you can fill up with water (but make sure you buy or make a mattress protector). He loves the tiles and wooden floors but I worry about his joints. There is a cheaper version of it on DealsDirect, it's sponge on one side and the other side you fill up with water, but my boy digs at his bed too much because of the 'waves', so I sealed up the sponge side (comes with a tiny hole...) and made cuts through the water side so the water can be absorbed by the sponge.