Dju

PSST, borrow one, dooo it! Speaking of which, whether I'm the right look for you guys or not Huga, I have a stack of jewellery (a good few pearl necklaces and bracelets) and a couple of corsets I may be able to lend you, if you need them.

Hehe, is Ba'hai available?

I would love to do this sort of thing, but I think Hugo's coat might be too long Both of you look sooo chic in those photos!

No worries guys, I just want the same outcome as everyone else I hope the initiative generates a lot of support through the website, and if my 1337 graphic design skillz can help that cause, then that's the best reward ever

Can't vets hold a strike or something? Refuse to euthanise? This news makes me so sad.

I am a relatively good web designer although I'm still a student so there are some things I don't know LOL. I'll PM you.

Do you guys need help with the website?

I really hope I will be able to contribute to the rally in Brisbane. It's very convenient to get to the Parliament House and I fully think that any dog lover should be participating in the rallies, the new legislation in Victoria is really a crying shame.

The puppy farm Billabong Creek Farm has a Facebook, and I'm happy to see that it's being bombarded by negative comments since the article arose. Maybe some DOLers should get over there and spread the love. I wanted to like Julia so much just because she's Labor and we're all for Labor in this household, but I think I kind of hate her now. Her actions sure make me enraged at the very least. I really hope those puppy farmers don't get a nice spike in their business from being publicly announced as being the place Julia Gillard got her mutt from..

But that's not to say it doesn't agree with all dogs. It gave my Pug really nasty hot spots that took ages to get rid of, my Shih Tzu got yeasty ears and another dog got too fat. However I have two other dogs who seem to do well on it. It's just trial and error and won't be the right food for all dogs, which the fan club needs to accept instead of appearing confused. Clyde....no one food agrees with all dogs. If I am confused then it's about the excessive drinking & I would be interested if someone could come up with a reason for it. Dogs with an upset stomach apparently drink more. It could be giving them indigestion?http://www.professorshouse.com/Pets/Dogs/Health/Articles/GI-Problems-in-Dogs/

I don't have pet insurance and I don't see myself needing it, because I always have a lot of money saved up (I don't pay bills, don't have a credit card, spend very little, and I am employed). I put $50 away every month since Hugo was born, and have $600 sitting in his piggybank at the moment if something ever happens to him (that amount of course keeps growing). Nothing bad has happened yet, I have never really needed to pop off to vet visits other than for innoculations and the time he developed some sort of infection on his tummy. Fingers crossed it stays that way, but I always have backup money to take care of him in case something really bad happens. However, I have a well-bred, healthy, hardy and long-lived breed that doesn't have a lot of known genetic faults, so of course I don't see the need for pet insurance. For a different breed that is known for having several genetic problems for example, I'd be inclined to insure the crap out of it

More information? Treatments for what, exactly? Stem cell research can be applied to plenty different things. Like they're doing stem cell research at the moment to try and actually regrow skin for burn victims and I heard they just recently succeeded with regrowing a dog's pads that had been completely burnt off.

Hopefully! Thanks for all the advice guys

I wasn't aware I was supposed to feed it after a large meal! I did feed it to him on an empty stomach, he turns his nose up at breakfast food and only eats at dinner.

Ah, well, true, it will probably be considered board by a judge, I forgot that. (I was calculating it as though a transferal of ownership had taken place but obviously that's not right if the original owner wants the dog back)

$50 a week sounds a bit unbelievable But still a great tactic, definitely get your friend to do this.

Ew. Is that bad? Should I be taking him to the vet?

Oh that's good, thanks. Yeah I'm keeping an eye on him, the poor mite. I wonder why his puke was yellow

I gave Hugo his Comfortis tablet yesterday morning and this morning lo and behold he's retching over the side of my bed (bless him for not wanting to get anything on my sheets) and throwing up some frothy yellow stuff onto my carpet. I haven't fed him anything unusual since then, could it be the Comfortis? Should I dose him again? Because I was really under the impression that it would have already.. absorbed? into his system by 20-24 hours. I don't want to overdose him with unnecessary chemicals, so I'm asking DOL

That said, how do you enforce a desexing contract? You can screen your buyers. You can offer an incentive (ie, refund on proof of desexing), but you can't force an owner to desex or stop them from breeding the dog once they have it. Why not desex the pups before they go if you feel that strongly about it? We do the above & in 25 yrs of breeding have a 100% success rate so its easily done . We also refund a price once done . All prospective puppy owners are told this during first inquiries so they know where they stand & no confusion as they OP has had. If people still wish to talk breeding then we can go into detail of what we expect from any of our dogs being breed from ie Health testing again all easy to enforce if you do it with passion & understanding & keep it simple. The keen ones suddenly realize that is isn't simple & appreciate the time spent ,the fly by nights will breed no matter what without any thought with what they may produce just to have "that litter". As our breed is highly sort after by DD.BYB & exporters we spay all our stock & have no issues enforcing any contract if need be but haven't had to as yet Can't the owner of the dog be taken to court if they don't obey the desexing contract?

You could ask some of the Maltese breeders in the listings on DOL? There's one adult up there in the "mature" place but they're in Brisbane, so.. Maybe look into rescue/pounds? There are heaps of Maltese/Maltese X's that need rescue and would probably love a home

Thanks guys lol :D Yeah at first I was all "HALTI!! FIX PROBLEM!! YAYY!!!" and then I realised that Hugo was walking around with something that people thought was a muzzle, so they didn't want to go near him, and that he hated it so much that every few hundred meters he'd drag his face against the ground. I couldn't keep putting him through that, and I wanted him to loose leash walk anyways, so I read a post by Sheena (I think) in the Training forum that outlined how she taught her dogs to loose leash walk using a clicker. I had a clicker that Miss B gave Hugo for Secret Santa Christmas last year, and I thought it couldn't hurt. Hugo goes insane when he sees the clicker now. "SIT STAND ROLL OVER LAY DOWN OMG WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO I AM GOING TO DO THEM ALL!" So big success! Now I can go running with him and he takes up a good pace besides me (turns out half the problem of him pulling may have actually been I was ambling about too slowly). But yeah, if you care about actually training your dog out of the habit, don't get a tool like an Easy Walk harness or a Halti. It just makes you lazy to actually train the dog to loose leash walk, and if you're anything like how I was, you'll procrastinate so much that it will make the job that much harder when you come to the realisation that you actually need to correct the problem. If I had spent any time on loose leash walking Hugo when he was a small puppy, it may have only taken days--I waited around 8 months or so and it was really difficult and took at least a week, if not more, of stop start stop start turn around walk the other way stop start turn around and walk the other way. Serves me right though, for trying a quick fix instead of training it out of him.

I bought a halti for Hugo but there was absolutely no training going on, it just instantly corrected him while he had the halti on but put him back on flat lead and the problem reappeared. So if you actually care about loose leash walking your dog, I wouldn't get a bandaid fix like that. The only thing that stopped Hugo's pulling was a good solid week of walking him in a stop go stop go motion all the time. When he pulled, I stopped walking until the leash went slack, or he looked at me, clicked the clicker, fed him a treat, and we kept going. Of course I was a noobie at that so I also did things like when he walked alongside me I clicked repeatedly and treated him for as long as he stayed by my side. Clicker training is awesome. After a week of doing that, even though I looked like a numpty stopping and starting all the time, he finally got it and while he doesn't walk next to me, it's always loosh leash. He does his thing and I do mine, I don't need him to walk besides me.

Hugo was impossible to cut his nails, he squealed when I touched the clipper against his toenail. I found that I could handle his feet otherwise quite easily though and he was getting freaked out over the item that caused him discomfort, not me handling his nails. Getting the dremel (the electric nail file thing) was the best thing I did. I don't use anything else and I can file down his nails to a point where there's no jagged edges and he doesn't cut my legs up when he crawls over me. Of course he still doesn't like getting his nails cut but it's more of a sulking thing. He'll sulk in my lap when I'm dremeling his nails, but he's no longer squealing and writhing uncontrollably in my lap when I need to trim his nails. Of course by all means train him to accept the nail clippers if you want but I found it was just easier (and more convenient) to get a $20 Dremel.

There are tens of thousands of sellers on eBay, you're best off checking out their feedback to see if someone has bought the same thing If you want a cheaper crate though, this one has a better price and with free shipping: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/X-Large-42-Collapsible-Metal-Dog-Crate-Pet-Puppy-Cage-/360390815577