disintegratus

Yep, Harley's a long grass eater as well. I thought it was just him, but apparently he's passed that nugget of wisdom onto Thundercleese as well, I pulled a piece of grass almost a foot long out of Thundercleese's backside the other day. Ah, the joys of pet ownership!! :laugh: All the dead-things stories reminded me of the time that the dogs let my two ferrets out. My girls were missing for 4 weeks. Then we had blocked drains After the plumber pulled them out (yes, both of them, ferrets are not smart), he put them down on the grass briefly while we dug a hole in the front yard to bury them in. Thankfully the dogs were locked inside at this point. When all was done and dusted, I let the dogs out, and they had a wonderful time. All of them rolled in what was left on the grass, and Zehra made passionate mouth-love to the drain opening for about half an hour. It's the longest I've ever known her to concentrate on anything!!

Haha, mine are doing that right now... except they're inside with the aircon on. Wimps!! :laugh:

That sounds creepy, awful and WRONG. Just about made me shudder. I bet his mother is rolling in her grave

After realising that the dogs, especially Bones, likes to eat the pig's grain and veges, we've been very vigilant in not letting them steal his food, mostly because they can't process it and we end up with poop-shaped piles of grain all over the backyard. Also, when Harley eats it, he stacks weight on. Bones was still pooping grain, had been for several days, and I figured that my sister must not have the time to stop her from eating the pig food in the mornings. Then when I was mowing the lawn the other day, I turned around to see her eating a large pile of pig crap, full of undigested grain! I yelled at her to stop it, which she took as a cue for "come as close to my face as you can and give me a kiss" At least I know why her poop's full of grain! :D

Anthropomorphising here, but I lost my voice once years ago. It was the most irritating thing in the world. I could still talk, but barely, then eventually I was trying to talk, but nothing was coming out. I wonder if dogs feel the same? I think they'd adjust pretty quickly, as a person would, if it was permanent but that period of adjustment must be the most frustrating thing ever!

But it would have been just like 101 dalmatians, except that 101 Cattle Dogs sounds like enough to do anyone's head in!! (Not that 101 Dalmatians would be any less work :laugh: )

I forgot about our close call/my worst nightmare from the other day! (well, I think I blocked it from my memory because it was so traumatic :laugh: ) I took two of my dogs, Bones the ditzy new pup, and Thundercleese my fear aggressive boy, to my Mum's house with me as we were going over for dinner for my birthday. My parents are not used to having to close gates and doors etc behind them because neither of their dogs are wanderers. While I was helping my stepdad put stuff away and clear up the backyard, Bones appeared at the back gate, on the outside. My first thought was "oh my god, Thundercleese!!" So I walked through the house, didn't see him, got in my car and started driving up the street with the windows open yelling his name. About 3 houses up, This gigantic yellow blur appears out of nowhere, he bounds up to the car, sooo happy to see me! I was so relieved I almost died. The first and last time he will ever be offlead in a public place!!! After that I closed him in the house til we were done and all the gates were closed. Sooo incredibly lucky, I hate to think what could have happened if there'd been a dog walking past. I'd never forgive myself. That said, he's never met another dog offlead outside his house, so he might be fine with them, but I'm not willing to risk it to find out.

Many years ago, we went out for mother's day breakfast, not getting home til well into the afternoon. When we got home I found my rat cage open, and my little girl gone without a trace. She spent all day out of her cage in the company of our dogs, a collie x lab and a jack russel, but I luckily found her none the worse for wear (well, except for a patch on her back where she had stress-groomed herself red raw) in some blankets underneath the piano that was just outside my bedroom door. The most recent one doesn't involve any dogs, but we came home after being out for several hours and I checked on the snakes, only to find one of the hatchlings had disappeared from a locked enclosure. After turning the place upside down, we stopped for a break and to try to form a gameplan to find him, only to notice one of the cats staring intently under the couch. We found our little Chocolate Bear, alive and in one piece :D but the poor little tacker had a couple of cat scratches on him, so had to be on antibiotic injections for a month.

At the moment (and for the past 2 years or so) ours have been on the costco food, kirkland signature. I tried to find some reviews etc on it at first, but I haven't been able to find anything, so I thought I'd give it a shot and have been very happy so far. They are all shiny and healthy and look forward to dinner times (though they'd probably still look forward to it if I was feeding them rocks, so that's not a fair representation of the quality of the food :laugh: ). They also get leftovers of various forms, they luck out when I clean out my boyfriend's fridge (they had steak and bacon the other day!) Recently Zehra's developed hayfever, so I thought I'd try switching her over to Black hawk (which the pup Bones is on, also very happy with that), just to see if it made a difference. So far no appreciable difference, but it's only been a week or so.

I'm by no means an expert, but they look a lot more like pure bred "black and tan mongrels" to me, very similar to my newest one, who's also a pure "black and tan medium-coated mongrel" at those pure labs!!! There's a PP at a shopping centre not far from my house. I used to like going in there when it was busy and making them uncomfortable, usually with conversations similar to: me: "is this a registered purebred **insert breed here**?" them: "yes of course, all of our puppies are 100% pure bred" me: "so it comes with papers?" them: "oh no, we're not allowed to sell them with papers" me: "okay, that's fine, but since it's a registered purebred pup that you're charging **insert ridiculous pricetag** for, I assume it's been health tested?" them: "of course, blah blah blah, super healthy, possibly a superhero" me: "are you able to tell me what the parents hip and elbow scores were please?" etc etc until I would get bored and leave. I never "caused a scene" (I didn't want to be dismissed by customers as a nutjob), but it was always loud enough so that many of the customers could hear them flailing. I felt bad sometimes for putting the poor salespeople in such an awkward position, but I figure that they should do their homework, and not work for PP. I haven't been back there in a while, to be honest the amount of people in the store always depresses me.

I'm confused, is it better to mow (with a catcher etc) or not to mow at all? We've got heaps of seeds at the moment, so far no issues with the dogs, but they keep getting stuck in the pig's fur. Partly because I was afraid of making it worse (but admittedly mostly because I hate mowing the lawn), I haven't mowed it yet and it's getting horrendous, but if mowing will make it worse, should I just leave it until the seeds drop?

From both sides (owner of a fear aggressive dog, and owner of friendly dogs), this sounds like a bad idea. Pretty much for the same reasons everyone else has (without the guidance of professionals, you risk the encounter being a bad experience for all involved which only makes things worse for everyone.) That said, if you are confident in your dogs personality etc, if you want to help her desensitize her dog, I'd go for it (while far enough away that your dog is still comfortable of course). I myself have "used" both dogs and people (both with their permission and without, but I don't think you should have to ask permission if their dog is on the other side of a football field and totally absorbed with being a normal dog; and that guy who just stood there on his front nature strip for about 15 minutes (without me asking him to) while I got Thundercleese under threshold and practiced "not trying to kill things" with him was a freaking angel!!!) ETA: I never put other people or animals into a situation where they were in any danger or uncomfortable, most of the time the didn't even know they were being used as a training tool at all!

2 of mine have no issues having their nails done, the young one I'm not sure, I haven't had to clip them yet! But we do a bit of work getting her used to me handing her feet, ears, eyes etc. She doesn't enjoy it overly but she's getting used to the idea. Mostly she's just confused. I spent a long long time getting Harley okay with having his nails clipped, and he's never been entirely comfortable with it, but he tolerated it. Then I ruined it when I took him to the vet and thought I'd get them to do it while I was there. Christ knows what they did, but now all my hard work's been undone, and it's super painful to clip his nails. It took me about 3 or 4 weeks to get him to let me pick up his paw again.

Worse I'd say, if you buy a dodgy used car, chances are it won't break your heart, just your wallet.

So true Hardy's Angel. And at least with oldies you know that their changes for the worse are because they're aging, not because they're awful teenage hellhounds who are concerned only with making your life difficult!! :laugh: I love old dogs, and have established that when I get the room (hopefully within the next 12months!!) I'm going to be constantly grieving because I'll adopt old dogs all the time. Old dogs remind me of some old people: they're unashamed and unapologetic of their bad behaviour, bad manners and bad smells! They've earnt their right to make you gag and leave the room! :laugh:

NO... they are puppy-fragrant :laugh: (As is mine ) And my windows have some lovely displays of border collie nose art :laugh: Speaking of nose art and similar, and sorry it's a bit OT, but we currently have a board over one of our windows because we found out the hard way that older houses have 3mm glass in the windows!! I got a phone call on my way home one day from my sister that she got home and found one of the dogs halfway out the window (it's next to the couch) barking at birds!! Very lucky no one got hurt or went missing!!!

Firstly, good on them for wanting to get some help rather than going with the same old mentality of "they're small, so it doesn't matter, they don't need to be trained" I could be wrong, but I don't think they will learn to play now, I think it's too late. And besides that, they may just not be dogs who enjoy playing with other dogs. Surely if they've lived with each other for 6 years, they would've figured out some semblance of play with each other. On the other hand, them barking *may* be their attempts at interaction, which could eventually lead to them wanting to play. I'd try to initiate play slowly, associate toys etc with good things, maybe they'll pick it up. I couldn't suggest a trainer in those areas, but I second sas' comment about walking them separately at first. Makes a HUGE difference. If it is possible to find out what the dogs already know, I'd do that as well. Maybe try an online translator just to see if they know the basics if your friend can't get in contact with the owners.

For short visits, I don't mind putting the dogs out, admittedly it does make it difficult for someone who's not used to them to move around the house with 4 large idiots who are excited about a person being there. But if someone is at my house for more than an hour or two, unless they have a valid reason such as extreme fear, they can sod off. MY house, MY rules, and MY dogs sleep on MY couch. If they don't like it, they're more than welcome to go elsewhere.

My rotti x was storm phobic when we got her, and we found out the hard way. We weren't home, and the poor thing scratched at the door until she tore a claw and sprayed blood all over the door, then managed to jump over the gate, we picked her up from the emergency vet up the road where someone had thankfully handed her in. I didn't do very much about it, I spent a little bit of time with her out in the rain and storms, and over time she's gotten over it, though these days if there's a very close clap of thunder she will bark at it once or twice, but she doesn't freak out anymore :D

My rotti x was storm phobic when we got her, and we found out the hard way. We weren't home, and the poor thing scratched at the door until she tore a claw and sprayed blood all over the door, then managed to jump over the gate, we picked her up from the emergency vet up the road where someone had thankfully handed her in. I didn't do very much about it, I spent a little bit of time with her out in the rain and storms, and over time she's gotten over it, though these days if there's a very close clap of thunder she will bark at it once or twice, but she doesn't freak out anymore :D

I'm usually pretty good with going to the local shelter etc, but last time I was there I saw an elderly BC, a lovely old gentleman, the poor old fella looked so confused, just sitting there quietly in his pen with all the other dogs around him going nutso. That actually made me cry (which doesn't happen often!) and the image of that poor guy stayed with me for a long time.

Mine will nip you on the bum then run away, probably while soiling himself. I mean, definitely be a big, aggressive protector. Lucky I didn't get him for his protective qualities! The other ones wouldn't even notice if there was someone there!

Awesome to hear :thumbsup: Truth be told, she's probably dealing better with it than you are!! :laugh:

Well, today I've closed all the critters in the house with me and turned the air con on. Because I've closed up all the doors, they can't get in and out to go to the toilet if they need to. I took them out for a toilet break about 5 minutes ago, and by god you would have thought that I was asking them to set themselves on fire. Lazy so-and-so's, acting like they're dying when they're asked to go outside for 5 minutes to relieve their bladders!! Life is so hard for a dog at my house :laugh: Meanwhile, I've been working up a sweat despite the air con cleaning the house (which is mostly the mess that those grotty sods have made) while they've been lounging on the couches, but they're the ones having a hard time of it! In the past when I haven't had air con, I've given them ice blocks (sometimes just plain 5l ice blocks, or sometimes with bits of food or frozen weak chicken or beef stock), shallow pools kept in the shade (otherwise the water gets warm and gross), if they have access to inside they get frozen towels laid on the tiles. If I'm making them a frozen treat block (which I didn't do for today because I'm terrible at planning ahead), I freeze a container full of their kibble, and freeze the treat cubes in layers, otherwise the kibble gets mushy and awful. They don't care, but I do. Frozen bones are a favourite, as are frozen treat blocks with a couple of chicken wings in the middle. I gave up on frozen kongs, they don't seem to last long enough. If I've got enough warning of a really hot day, I re-shuffle my freezer so I can fit a bucket in there, fill it with water and freeze it solid, and chuck that in the shallow pool to keep it cooler for longer.

Sorry, off topic! I just played that video while all my dogs were sitting down quietly in the lounge room. None of them are sitting down quietly any more!! They're all wondering where I've trapped another dog!! I don't really have anything cnstructive to add to this thread though, the most recent pup we didn't get til she was 5 months old and I think she's done a really good job so far of figuring out the rules from the others. Inside the house means settled down and quiet times:)