Weasels

Thanks panzer. Isn't just so distressing for all concerned I have tried everything I can think of with her & no improvement as yet. She is getting lots of daily exercise etc. Maybe she needs more mental work, I just dont know what to do BC sorry I haven't followed your posts closely so apologies if you've done this, but have you tried a desensitisation & counter-conditioning protocol with her? With Weez we started with the thing he was least crazy over (bikes), then we did scooters and after just those 2 things he has generalised to so much and the only thing he reacts to now is a single gsd who stands outside our house twice a day (). It has changed our walks completely tho. If you are interested I can PM you the video of our training, it does take 2 people to do the training. If she is fearful I would really recommend against the water bottle, it will almost certainly increase her anxiety (either that or she won't notice)

I think (from memory) I saw Mashlee post on DOL a while ago and realised we live around the corner from each other :) So we catch up for Indie and the kelps to run around like lunatics together every now and again :laugh: I didn't put my name down, because I had bought someone else's ticket so I was kinda incognito I asked a friend to forward me the notes, but thanks for the offer :) I found the last session helpful but more for things that relate to herding like teaching a straight send-away; a lot of the heeling and off-leash stuff was repeated from earlier. But I had about half the drive home that you did so I understand you wanting to take off! Yum Dome :)

Pretty sure there isn't a dedicated club, someone might know of a club that does it for fun though. Which area are you in?

it's a title I will wear with pride :laugh:

*ahem* Puppy photos please!

Horty I went, and we spoke :) I need to make up a to-do list from my notes today before I forget what my shorthand means :laugh:

Find a good puppy school. Don't keep playing when the dog is getting overexcited, plus yelp & end the game the second that teeth touch skin. Edit - a classic (free!) e-book on puppy socialisation and teaching bite inhibition is "after you get your puppy" on dogstardaily.com :) Congrats on the new pup!!

So fluffy :) Very cute.

I tie my dogs up outside the servo, but it's glass-fronted so I can lean over and check on them from most places inside the shop. It's good practice for trials for them to settle unattended and tethered.

What he lacks in digestive skills he certainly makes up for in being a complete sweetie pie :)

Whoa that changes things a bit, Encounter Bay is about 90km south of Adelaide!

She is very cute! I love ridgies, I even find them hiding around my house sometimes :)

That is so cute! I can just imagine Jarrah all smug on her special chair :D The fact it was actually teaching her valuable stuff is a massive bonus :laugh: Staffyluv absolutely mental work is tiring, I would say more so than exercise. As my first trainer said to me, exercise without brain work will just transform a bored dog into a fit, bored dog. I shudder to think how much time I'd have to spend running to tire out the kelpies physically

The "lady" (and I'm using the term under protest) is the one who sleeps on my bed, so she combines all her disgusting cleaning into a single close-by, noisy routine in the wee small hours.

Oh I forgot one. 20 minute ass-cleaning sessions at 3am.

Bark. And bark. And bark some more. -_-

Aint that the truth. Actually the statistics are pretty solid. It's the same method used by molecular ecologists all over the world to identify wild populations. If you test a group of animals who live with with a barrier in the middle of their range, the method is surprisingly reliably at telling you which side of the barrier each individual lives on. It's the genetics end where the test lives and dies. Garbage in; garbage out, and companies aren't going to spend a bunch of extra money to develop a thorough screening of the genome at informative markers. As I've said before, I fully believe that it's possible to develop a good breed test. I'm less sure that it can be done at a commercially viable price point and that there's the will out there to put in the groundwork.

I feed Eagle Pack holistic select to my 2 for breakfast. Does what is says on the box; they seem healthy, happy and not poo machines I feed chicken frames, leftovers/meat scraps or Nature's Gift tinned for their dinner.

I'm sure this is their goal but they are going about it all wrong. they are sensitizing the dogs, making them more fearful. And the dog who got loose at the end and bolted. I hate to think what happened to him when the owner caught up Part of me was hoping the owner wouldn't catch up with him ever :/ After watching my fearful dog completely wig out and shut down at the vet yesterday, the thought that anyone would cause that reaction on purpose and for no real benefit is beyond words.

Agree - and a test for each breed is wildly impractical anyway, especially since most of the animals that come through will be cross breeds. So you'd be pouring resources into developing a test for a dog that pops up, say, once a year? Once every 5 years?

Some ideas: http://www.dolforums.com.au/topic/90487-kelpie-names/ http://www.dog-names.org.uk/australian-kelpie-sheep-dog-names.htm I like Echo :)

:laugh: perfect.

A Kerfuffle of Kelpies

If the pup is having trouble connecting the action with the reward look into clicker training.

Excellent post from an earlier thread on kelpie coat colours - genetically dilutes are red or black, but there are other modifiers which affect the shade. As Janba said these look genetically red due to the noses, but the modifier genes have made them a stunning smokey colour :) More specifically there are two types of pigment which dogs can have : Phaeomelanin a melanin pigment that causes some shade of red, orange, gold or yellow coloration and Eumelanin a melanin pigment that causes some shade of black or brown coloration. There are a number of genes - ASIP (Agouti/A series), MC1R (E locus), TYRP1 (B locus), CBD103 (K locus) then there are a whole bunch more which cause dilutions, spots etc and some of which have not been identified at the "genetic" level. All these genes act in concert to create the "coat colour" you see in a dog - some modify the colour of the pigment, some mask it and some cause certain patterns. Agouti causes solid tan/red, sable, solid black, black & tan colouration patterns. MC1R causes black pigment masked causing red pigment i.e. places where Eumelanain would be expressed now have Phaeomelanin. This would mean that a black and tan dog (at the Agouti locus) would phenotypically be red and tan. If the dog would otherwise be black and carries the ee genotype the dog would likely be solid white. Tyrp1 causes the eumelanin to be brown where it would "normally" be black. CBD103 causes dominant solid black colouration and brindle colouration. A really fantastic website for more information is - http://homepage.usask.ca/~schmutz/dogcolors.html That website is written/maintained by one of the main scientific researchers who works on coat colour in dogs. The interactions between the genes causes some very complex colour patterns and it can often be hard to "know" which genotype causes the phenotype as many phenotypes look so similar. *hope this is helpful/useful* E- Chess is fawn (dilute red), she is redder than the smokeys but has similar nose colour. Also a suspected mild case of colour dilution alopecia.