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No way said that you should dump you're Vet :D I was just have a bit of a laugh, loads of vets are against the BARF diet.

Who the hell doesn't take their dog to the vet asap if they have swallowed a piosion??? Inducing vomiting? Wouldn't be reccomending anything like that without first calling to vet, sometimes it can do more harm than good. Hope the dogs are ok.

My girl naturaly has very long nails and even when cut right back one will still touch the ground. I find a file works for me as she has black nails I get too nervious to get the clippers out.

I'd keep away from the corn Mush the vegies up and they will digest better and do the good they are meant to :D Your vet is a dip shit :D

Well there's my problem, I was looking for it where the soft drinks are, thanks BL

hahaha my boy seems more aggressive a month after being de-sexed......

Where do you guys get it from? I've looked for it in Woolworths, Coles, Bi Lo & Franklins without any luck!

I got one and put on my mobile number on it by them:) It has arrived and is just beautiful, I got the silver dog bone.

Depending on your budget... Dog Tags

if you like your dog sleeping on your bed and the dog isn'tdominant or aggressive and is responsive and gets off if you ask it to, then no worries eh? Can the dog make you sick? What exactly does your mum think you're going to catch? If you're dog is unhygentic, wash it If the dog has worms, you could have an issue there, but if you are a responsible owner and pooch is healthy and happy, I can't see any probs, if your mum is still concerened, ask ya vet

I use BlackDog products for my boy, the collar does have a plastic clip, however how the collar is designed the clip doesn't have any weight put on it as such. I also use the BlackDog head halter, although I'm not a fan of halters, it's the only aid at this stage that my boy responds to and I feel I have total control of him, it does have a plastic clip but I also have another part for it which connect from the halter to the collar incase a plastic clip did break. When we go to training, we use a collar with a buckle rather than a plastic clip which attaches to the halter just to be extra careful.

The whole de-sexing thing, a good idea, but in regards to behaviour, IF, IF you are going to see any change it won't typically be for a month after the chop, gotta give the hormones a chance to settle. I'm not sure de-sexing has done anything for my boy. I'm so glad that he made friends with the Kelpie! That's a great start....who likes Corgi's anyhow LOL Just kidding! Kinda lol

4 weeks is a small amount of time for a pooch without previous training. Some pooches pick up training really well, others can take longer. It's taken us 8 months to get Leila to an OK level and it's taken Turbo 2 months to get to that same level. Just keep working on it, once you've mastered an item without distraction, you can start testing it with distraction but expect the learning with distraction to take longer than what it did without, there are so many interesting things out there for dogs to get distracted by......like the wind..... Have you tried siting pooch everytime his distraction wavers?

Hi Kitty, Just because someone told you to do something doesn't mean it is right for your pup. Me personaly, I would place a single finger on a puppy, body language is enough to get attention, a firm No is enough. Puppies are naughty little buggers, you have to have a whole heap of patience. Sure a pups mum would dicipline her puppies, but we're not Dogs, we don't know how hard she is scruffing her puppy or many other factors, so instead of causing any problems down the track don't dicipline the dog with your hands IMO.

This isn't a cure to the itching but have you considered those booties you can buy for dogs? I would say that would stop her cutting her self? If a medical reason can't be found do you think it's possible that this is a learnt behaviour now and she just does it because it's a habbit? Which in that case providing distractions when she does it could assist?

If you have fallen in love with this puppy just make sure you apply a product like zinc (what the crickers were) on puppies nose. And it's not just in summer, UV rays are all year round. You certainly can take pup home at 6 weeks if she isn't from a registered breeder, however if you can arrange not to pick her up until 8 weeks you will benefit from that, it will give her an additional 2 weeks to learn things from her mum and litter mates such as bite inhibition, toileting, socialisation and she'll also be at a more stable stage to take at 8 weeks. An additional 2 weeks with mum can mean a lot for the pup :D Have you considered buying from a registered breeder where you can get a health gaurantee and see the parents? I'm pretty sure if you have a look around you should be able to get a registered pet quality puppy for the price you are alreeady paying.

Some boy doggies live their whole life not cocking their legs, hey it's a positive if you ask me

I get bored of classes too, Leila gets absolutely bored after half an hour. It's just the same thing every time in the novice classes. We've taken a months break.

The thing is the dog is still begging. I guess in the esrly stages this is ok if it's doing something in return for your food. I don't give my dogs any food I have in my hands for me, a dog won't beg unless it thinks it has a reasonable chance of getting what it wants. I don't want my dog begging for food if I have guests around. You see even with NILIF method your dog is still demanding the food, I just simply would not give it your food, it gets it's own food and that's it (excluding training treats)....is your dog overweight? I think it's great that you're trying it out! With the toys you can always have one of two toys laying around the house and then rotate the toys....just like kids if you give them a bunch of toys they are unlikely to play with them all, they'll be likely to get bored of them and not appreciate them. When you're eating would you feel comfortable leashing your dog away from the table and teaching it "on your bed' comand whilst you're eating? Yes pooch will probably wine and make you feel bad but when it understands when you're eating it should go and lay on it bed and be good and then for being good you can give it a doggie treat it will soon understand. Have used this methods with out dogs and foster dogs, the longest it taken any of those dogs to learn the on your bed command when we're eating is a week.

We feed barf paddies from pet deli, for 2 big dogs it's $50 a week for their evening meals and we also have some Eagle Pack which they get about half a cup with in their evening meals, you can safely give up to 20% kibble if Eagle Pack Holistic without upsetting the barf balance. The the mornings they get a small meal, it varies anything from a bone, to chicken necks to kibble etc. So probably overall, it's costs $60 a week to feed 2 Danes (110 kgs) which I think is pretty good, I could do it cheaper if I made the barf myself but I'd rather buy it to get the ratios correct.

I think you can expect 2 chicken necks to go in a flash, if it's only 2, I think that's fine as a snack as long as it's only once a day or a couple of times a week. You can feed chicken necks as a meal if you like or just pop them in with their meal.

I only have experience with dogs 9 months and over and we get them sorted to an 80% level within 48 hours and then by the end of the week they're sorted. I guess the problem with a pupp is that they have obsticles to overcome such as closed dogs, stairs etc that they may not fully understand. I pretty much think if a dog isn't house training properly you either have a medical problem or the dog doesn't under 100% what it's meant to do so you need to go back and start from scratch with taking them out heaps, praising etc.

No one is going to kid you, yes it is hard emotionaly to start with until you get the hang of it and you can feel like a real meanie, but you always have to think of the reason you're doing this. I let one of mt dogs on the sofa because she gets off when I ask and she gives me no issues with aggression or disobediance. BUT with my boy, no way in hell, he's not allowed on the furniture, why? Because he's a dominant male who thinks he's king S&^* and he challenges us, so he's being put in his place as we speak. Yes, I feel like a meanie sometimes, but showing him leadership is giving him what a dog needs to feel secure, he's learning that I am the leader and I make the decisions....there's no need for him to have a go at another dog because I'm the protector, I handle the situations, not him. The key to a well balanced dog is consistancy, I can't stress that enough, everyone who has anything to do with your dog needs to be consistant. Will the aggression go away? Yes, No, Maybe, it's really up to you, it's not going to happen overnight, it's a long term commitment. Will de-sexing help? Maybe, Maybe not, I wouldn't be relying on this solely at all. Invest the money on your dog, research an animal behaviorist, ask other people in the doggy community about them. The NILIF methods means that of course you can pat your dog and do all the normal things but only when you initiate it. So if pooch is being a good boy and laying down or sitting down, go give him a cuddle, if pooch comes over, ask pooch to sit before you pat, be aware of what you're dog is demanding, you'll soon come to see you're dog is very damanding and invades your personal space a lot, once you tune into that, you'll be on your way to a better relationshiop with your pooch. You wouldn't let a child get away with what you let your pooch get away with, right? And I'm not sure if you pick your dog up alot, but if you do, try and minimise this, leave it on the ground where it belongs, no need to further confuse the dog about it's place in the pack structure. In the long term you're going to have a dog that respects you and is happy and doesn't feel the pressure of having to be the leader because you'll be the leader.

There's a tonne of stuff you can start doing at home to put your spolit pooch back where it belongs. I have a dominant male in my home, not aggressive towards people but to dogs but he pushes humans and challenges them in ways that seem very cute but when you know a little bit more about doggie behaviour you'll see those cute things can typicaly have dominant layers. I know what you're feeling, you want to know that youre dog is still going to be fun and happy after you address the issue. The answer is YES, it's hard to see that right now but pooch will be confident in itself because it knows where it belongs, pooch will still have fun and will most likely be more calm because it's not stressed about what it's allowed to do and what it's not. Pooch may infact become worse before it become better to start with, no one likes to be challenged for position in the ranks do they. The key is to be consistant, that means sitting down with everyone who has day to day contact with the dog and setting out the rules that everyone must abide by when it comes to re-training the dog. I certainly reccomend getting in an animal behaviourist, we are seeing one every 2-3 weeks at this stage, we just had our 2nd session today and it is helping a great deal. Have a look on the net for some simple things you can do at home whilst your looking for an animal behaviourist such as: NILIF (Nothing in life is free method) this means that dog must do something for you to get what it wants. Doggie wants its dinner, make it sit and wait. Doggie comes over for a pat, make it sit first and stop patting the moment its butt lifts from the floor. However for us, we ignore the request for the pat because we give pats on our terms not the dogs terms, so I may go over to dog and give a pat when I feel like it, I don't tolerate demanding behviours, I ignore them. Doggie never goes through a door before me and that means any door even into the kitchen. All these things can sound harsh, they're not harsh, you're not hitting or screaming at the dog, you're teaching it manners. If pooch is bugging you at dinner time, put it in a crate or leash it until it learns that is not acceptable. Pooch doesn't walk in front of you on a walk, if it does you stop and make it sit and do that each time pooch gets in front of you. Pooch gets time outs, if pooch is pushing you and challenging you then outside or in a room for 5 minutes. Do you step over your pooch or walk around it? Pooch should get out of your way, so I pretty much just walk up and nudge then nudge again until pooch gets up and moves then they soon learn to get out of your way and give you personal space. (I would not reccomend this one for a people aggressive dog unless the animal behaviorist first asseses your dog and gives you the go ahead) Does pooch sit on your feet or invade your personal space? Push pooch away. Does pooch sit on the sofa or sleep on the bed - off the bed and off the sofa, no place for an aggressive dog whose challenging for top rank or who thinks they already are top rank. These are the things we are doing right now, they may not be right for you and your pooch, but some of the simpler ones and the ones you feel comfortable with you may like to try or when you call and make a booking with an animal behaviourist ask them about the methods and the methods which they use. Good Luck!

I was lucky enough to to attend the work shop also, however I decided to go without my big boof head. A big thank you to Mana for being such a wonderful Taxi Driver hehehe Mana has given me the confidence that maybe I can kinda read road maps hehehe A huge thank you to Steve for providing such an informative work shop...whoooo information overload, I can't wait to have the one on one! Monika, thanks for chatting to me about the progress you've made with the extremely handsome Rex, it has boosted by confidence! It was also a great opportunity to meet some other DOLers and their beautiful companions......I hope I don't see that Chi x again because I think I may just steal her! If you haven't had the opportunity to get to one of the work shops yet, I highlu reccomend it!