best4koda

Previous dog was fine on it. New GSD had probs with is, the runs etc...was tolerable on the sensative one but still not 100%. We found SuperCoat sensative worked for ours. Not our preferred level of food but what ever works is better then the runs and continuous vet bills and damage to the intestinal tract. Not all foods are good for all dogs....Unfortunately our dogs are just as individual as ourselves. ;)

I have been told before that you can use such products as sentinel with capstar. I was told that the sentinel would not kill the adults so capstar would do that. Someone on here should be able to confirm it. If in doubt you should be able to just ring the local vet to get a quick answer....fingers crossed, we have always been lucky too.

What else are you feeding as well? kibble, meat, treats etc. Could be just the worming issue but our GSD started to have allergy reactions to food from about this age. Initally removing all commercial treats calmed it down but she got worse when older. We finally found a kibble she could eat and she reacts to fat and lamb. But all good now. So if it doesn't go away see if it's something in the diet. Hopefully it's just worms

Our GSD slept outside from about 12 weeks as she started to chew door frames! But she was happy on her bed and as we headed towards the cooler months she got a crate to double as her kennel. She's a chewer unfortunately. We cover the crate so it is warm for her and after dinner she puts herself to bed. All our GSD's were sleeping outside from fairly young in a kennel near the back door. Should be fine with bedding/kennel etc. :D

Thanks will check them out.

Hi all, I'm wanting to introduce my Koda some trick training to use some of her mental energy up to help with her behaviour. She sits, drops, stays to a degree, can shake hands even though she just about kills you with the impact of her paw. So I would like to teach her to roll over and some other tricks. Does anyone know of a good reference source for tricks online that I can utilise to help train her a few. Thanks.

I think you are on your way to solving the issue with the advice provided. It sounded to me that the pup just needed to learn the rules and that he is no longer competing for his food. Our current 12month old GSD did a bit of growling in the beginning as well. Even at one of our kids. That's not on in our house. We have always taught our Sheps that we are allowed to take the bowl. touch them (not annoy) and move around them while they eat. We have kids and I think this is essential to reduce child/dog incidents if possible. We teach to sit and stay while bowl is placed down and not to touch until told to. Ours know she will always get the food back and we teach the kids not to touch while they are eating. Just saying training to ensure a touch can happen without someone getting hurt is a good thing. If the issue persists seek advice sooner rather then later.

That sounds like a good idea. We had an older pup at puppy school come just to mingle with the younger ones as additional socialisation. You could possible do more of it at obedience as well. We hang around before and after for the dogs to stand around learning to great and meet calmly.

Sounds like he is scared a little or putting a front on. Perhaps some more socialisation with similar aged pups and size will help him get over it. Also make sure all other pups/dogs are nice meeter and greaters so he doesn't have a bad experience while young and impressionable so to speak. I know a friend who's young pup had a bad experience and it's taken along time to get him over his fear of others. So some nice positive re-enforcement should help, he is only little.

How old is Zorro?

Hi, yes I'd check with the vet. When we were in Singleton NSW with lots of cattle, kangeroos (plague amounts of the cute buggers) and sheep we were advised to worm for the hydatid regularly so ensure that it doesn't pass on and cause complications for the human host. The local vet should be able to advise. I watched a case on RPA and they are nasty little criters and hard to remove intact from humans as well.

Yep, I buy chicken frames for mine. She loves them. Keeps her busy too.

Yes,nothing worse then accidents in the house. Some people on here have put a bell (or perhaps a rope with a bell on it)on the back door and they taught their dog to ring the bell when they needed to go outside. When she is out of the crate do you regularly check on her for the signs of needing to go? sniffing and seeming like she's looking for a spot and quickly running her outside. You can add a key word like wees as well as you put her out... Perhaps you could limit where she can go in the house, either by commands or by safety gates so you restrict her until it's under control and in turn limiting the clean up. My girl is mainly outside but does come in and when she is we keep a keen I on her. But she is not allowed off the tiles just in case. You should get some good tips from others on this. Hope you get some improvement soon.

I found this one quite good too, in assisting in why they rated certain ingredients good/bad while I was researching for my girl as well.

Hopefully the vet can assist in narrowing the problem down. It could be just the change in diet. Some dogs need to be moved onto fresh meat slowly if they have just been on a processes food diet. I would keep her on a simple diet for a while so she can settle down and give the stomache a rest then perhaps add something and see if it gets a reaction, and do that for a while only adding a new item once you know the previous hasn't had any reaction for a while. We had the runs after trying to move ours onto a better quality kibble, thought it was the change over...didn't get better so changed food slowly again...and just got worse. Bones gave her terrible runs as well and we ended up at the vets twice. Vets thought it was Giardia, EPI or allergies. We went super bland diet and finally found supercoat sensative worked for our GSD. Then we slowly added fresh meat. She can now tolerate most meats as long as they are low fat but lamb meat and bones are a no no for ours. Oh expensive kibble just gives her the runs. So I can't complain, she's better on the cheap stuff. Hope you find a solution quickly.

Yeah had thougth of the change in surfaces. Thanks. Quite a few ride with dogs here. I think yes it' illegal to do it on the road but alot seem to do it in the quiet streets here as there are so many walkers you end up forced off. We have a bike/walking path locally as well which will be fine for it too. There would be less issues with dogs in communities if they made it a little easier to exercise them in our neighbourhoods I'm sure. But with some doing the wrong thing its a battle for the rest of us.

Thanks freundhund, She's 14 months this month and I just wanted to make sure I was going to soon. She's a high drive dog with a chewing problem so I'm just looking at introducing her to it to help tire her out a bit more then a walk. I will take it slow as suggested. It's all flat here so that is good. I've just started getting her used to it in our street as I needed to learn to handle the bike and her as well. I have ordered one of the walkydog bike gadgets to help with that. Hopefully a little bike riding will compliment all the walking, fetch and other activities we have her doing to occupy her mind so less destructive behaviour. Thanks.

Hi, at what age is okay to start training your GSD to run along with the push bike for exercise. Mine is about 13months old now. I've started to get her used to it in our street and was wondering if it's ok now to go longer without hurting her joints etc. thanks.

I use the plastic coated wire/cable sold in hardware stores get someone good with knots to attach a swivel clip to one end .. and make a loop at the other end. Thread a belt thru the loop .. clip dog on the other end .. and off you go! handsfree longline Been meaning to check out the hardware for something cheaper. I will tomorrow as I drive past it tomorrow. Good suggestion.

We do milk bottes but I have to take the lids off otherwise she will eat the lids. She gets the lid off in about 30 seconds. I might try the hard bottles undersupervision though.

Yes, I was advised to try to stay away of areas of high risk as mentioned above. Mine went out a bit but I considered the risks and tried to minimise the obvious ones.....love little puppies, bet you can't wait.

Will look at the nylabone as an addition. I didn't know if they were worth buying as in the dogs actually liking them. She doesn have a tendency to eat what she chews as well.

Hi Nekbet,we started obedience with her at the GSD club as soon as we could. I tried to contact the schutzhund club by their site but the email function isn't working. Do you know anything about the branch in sydney? Sorry I don't think the breeder can be blamed for this one. This is our 3rd shepherd and we took our time picking a pup and the breeder tried to pick the most even natured pup as we have kids. She did, this girl presented as a very calm puppy, She was slightly reserved but interested and very calm....ah! She was just fooling us! We did not see the signs till quite a while later. And she is lovely nature otherwise, nothing seems to phase her and will be a very sturdy family dog I think when we can her drive undercontrol and come out the other side of maturity.

Poodlefan, she doesn't get large bones as we've had to deal witha stomach issue with this one. She can't have lamb bones, or marrow bones or we end up at the vets. She's that bad she bleeds. So I feed her chicken carcasses which she's fine on and semi frozen atlantic salmon heads which she can tolerate as well. She loves them. She completely destroys large marrow bones. None of our previous were able to do that but she can't have them. I have put all her toys in a milk crate so she has to pull them out one at a time. Today she has decided the milk crate is far more satisfying. Lots of damage on the crate but thats better then the house.

Also I would definitely try to put some sort of barrier up in that corner for your dog. Just read your other post. Mine would be able to scale the retaining wall without to much effort. Dogs that I have known that have gotten out while young have tended to become escape artists so I would suggest trying to ensure that it can't happen.