Weasels

Not cool. I found a small dog outside my house a while back (with a council tag on luckily). I took her down to the local vet to call the ranger, since my boy had kennel cough so I couldn't take her into my house. Vets found the owner, called and the owner apparently replied "oh yeah, she's been gone since last night. I can't come down until later, I'm not dressed". The vet staff couldn't believe it. Dog was back in my front yard again a week later. If my dogs ever got out I would be a total mess, wandering the streets like a deranged person and calling everyone until I found them

Hi Sherlot, I only sent my entry for the trial off on Monday , do you think there'll still be room for 2 kelpies? We need another PT pass under a non-Steph judge. Good luck with Sooty!

You could try this: sitting with the aggressive dog in a room/outside and ignoring it. Getting someone to come in with another dog, then giving the aggressive dog treats and praise and fuss until the other dog leaves, then go back to ignoring the aggresive dog. Repeat. You may need to keep the other dog far away enough away from the aggresive dog that it isn't reacting to start with, then slowly bring the other dog closer. The idea is to get the aggresive dog to change its habit from "other dog! bark! lunge!" to either "other dog! yay good things happen when I see him!" or to "other dog! I'll look to my master for treats!". Either reaction would help in this case I think. With managing dog-dog interactions and especially aggression a good behaviourist is always good idea, but I understand these don't come cheap so I'm just suggesting something to try in the meantime Best of luck. ETA I missed the bit where he drew blood on your dog not a handle-at-home case after all

With this thread fresh in my mind, I met about 4 new dogs today while out walking. All were GSDs or shepherd mixes, all had some degree of raised hackles when they met my dogs. All meetings ended amicably, either in play or quietly moving along

Hi SAAM, I was going to reply to your other post but I got called off to an impromptu puppy-date The destruction you described before seemed pretty intense, I recommend a professional to assess the dog's behaviour. If you can get a video recording of how she acts when you are out that would be helpful too. Generally the lack of interest in bones and kongs would suggest anxiety rather than boredom, but if she's not into food normally it's hard to say. You can buy DAP (dog appeasing pheremone) and I'd say it's worth a try but not a long term solution. Best of luck

I'd say my favourite dog movie would be the Footrot Flats movie, although I haven't seen it since I was a kid so I'm not sure how well it has aged :/ I still get all happy when I hear the theme song tho. Not really an animal movie but I was emotionally scarred when the horse drowned in Neverending Story, it is seared into my memory. I think I'm showing my age

Raised hackles have evolved as a deterrent to intruders or other unwanted nearby critters to say "I'm big! Don't mess with me!". But it is certainly possible that some dogs do it in other situations as well, just as a knee-jerk reaction. It is highly variable among dogs as to how readily they will raise their hackles. e.g. - My girl does it readily, almost whenever she meets a new dog or someone gets too close to our property. She gets a beautiful spiky mohawk the length of her back. My boy does it rarely, and the hair on his butt and neck just fluff out in all directions which is far more funny that threatening I'd keep an eye on it, but not worry too much without any growling or other signs of trouble.

The AWL is hoping the same thing - Link (Adelaide Advertiser). They didn't say it was already happening tho, just that they were worried about it. Since Red Dog came out ppl have been calling my girl 'a little red dog'. I try not to be too pedantic and say she is actually fawn . Haven't seen it yet, I am waiting 'til I can watch it at home so I can get all teary in the privacy of my own home

As people have said, it sounds like your dog is great alone, the main worry is that you don't create problems by stressing I had trouble trying to act casual when I left and returned home for a while, especially because my girl did show separation distress when we first got her. I just get in the mindset of treating like entering and leaving a room - 'no big deal, see you again soon'. I just say 'be good!' when I leave, and when I get back make sure I put my stuff down, say hello to OH if he's there, then say hi to the dogs and a quick pat on the head. The less fuss from me, the less fuss from them. I know it's hard not to worry when you are out, but the most important thing is not to show it when you are coming and going I've recorded my dogs several times on the webcam on my laptop. After a few hours of watching video of my dogs sleeping, only to get up to go sleep somewhere else, my anxiety was much reduced :D

I can't help with the Melb question, but I can have a go at the others My 2 kelpies have been herding since March this year, and it has been great for them. The number one thing that my boy in particular has gotten out of it is learning to listen better under high-excitement situations. He can be reactive to fast movement, but i can now use the same commands that work for keeping him off the sheep to stop him from chasing joggers and bikes. They get very excited on 'sheep day', and for herding breeds this is the highest level of reward, so i find it great for motivating behaviours like 'stop' and 'lay down' because if they don't do them they don't get to keep working sheep! I haven't noticed any increase in inappropriate herding behaviour, but if they did try they would now know how to take commands to stop. So in short I say go for it It is great to see dogs 'switch on' to what they were bred to do :D ETA: plus they are so tired after a couple of hours herding, it's the longest stretch of peace and quiet we ever get from them!

I just thought I'd put the previous talk of next-generation DNA sequencing in context and get back on-topic The new crop of genetic technologies like next-gen sequencing and 'SNPs' are going to make an accurate breed test possible in the not-too distant future. The set-up and processing costs are still too high at the moment, but they are dropping all the time, in a similar way to how computer hard drives have rapidly gotten so much better and cheaper. The problem with the current method of testing, and here I am guessing they're using 'microsatellites', is that it might be testing only 10-20 individual parts of the whole dog's genome. Since dogs have 39 chromosome pairs, which shuffle up and are randomly assigned to each pup from both parents, if you are only testing, say, 10 DNA segments you can easily miss contributions of some breeds and overestimate some others by chance. And all of that is assuming your actual testing method is perfect and you can discriminate each breed accurately, which may not be the case and adds another potential source of error. A study published last year using the new 'SNP' technology used 48,000 parts of the genome to define each breed and their relationships to each other. This was a huge worlwide study, but as I said these technologies are getting cheaper and more accessible every year. So I guess I'm saying I know the breed tests may give wonky results now, but don't give up on genetics altogether ;)

For some reason I just see the sea as a seething mass of things that are trying to kill me But I did terrestrial ecology and had to contend with leeches, ticks and snakes, so I suppose it's just a matter of perspective :D

Yay! It's a good skill to have!

Thanks OSS and bedazzled! We had the sea slugs last summer, fortunately the dogs aren't interested in them at all. There was a warning up about them at our local vet. I am very anal about keeping a close eye on my dogs at the beach tho with all the nasty things that wash up. I knew there was a reason I avoided marine biology at uni!

I was on Warnbro beach, I think that because of the storminess last night a lot of sea-life and rubbish had washed up. We grabbed a couple of dead fish off the beach as well including a huge spiky porcupinefish Maybe when the weather is a bit calmer it will be a good time to introduce your pup Ugh creepy things! At least the ones we came across were dead and young, I think that lessened the impact. All this was about 2 hours ago and I can barely feel any stinging in my toe now. The Fox has just had breakfast and seems her normal sooky self, fingers crossed.

Thanks again ST! I only skimmed over that one before since it said 'tropical', but re-reading it does sound like they might have been baby blubottles. I always thought they were a Qld/Nth NSW thing, but then I was never a beach person until I got dogs. A poor 16 week old pup that was with us got stung too I think I will stick to the park for a while now too. As if the blowfish and porcupinefish weren't enough to worry about :rolleyes:

Thanks SparkyTansy! I had a look at that page but it didn't seem to clear to me which photo went with which description Fortunately both OH and I are at home today so we can keep a close eye on our girl.

Hi Westralians! I was hoping someone could help me out The beach we take our dogs to was covered in little jelly things this morning (down Rockingham way ). They were mainly clear with blue masses on one side and the bigger ones had a single long blue stinger. Of course if I google 'blue' and 'jellyfish' I just get bluebottles and Qld sites, but they seem to be all over blue whereas these were mostly clear. Does anyone know what these are? I didn't get a photo but this seems to be them - Link. Are they just baby bluebottles or something else? I think my kelpie girl and I were both stung, she seems fine now, she just stopped and licked her paw peridically while we were still on the beach (keeping an eye on her tho). I have a bit of stinging on one toe but it's subsiding, I was just hoping for a bit more information. Thanks!

Yep submitted on the 23rd! Thanks, it's been a long time coming :D Will probably start work next week doing some next gen sequecing

It is an odd way to charge, because how could you provide results until you had a fair collection of dogs tested? But that aside, my guess is they offered to charge 1/3 of their usual rate just to get the dogs of that breed in so that could add it to their list of breeds. I'm pretty sure they were testing certain breeds for free when they were starting up just to get the reference samples. Yes, back to work! (I get to be all smug in my 2 weeks off between finishing study and starting my new job! )

I like my dogs to be a bit in front of me so they can stop and have a quick sniff in the time it takes for me to get past them, and also because if my boy is walking beside me he is always contantly staring up at me, which I find annoying (I know some people train for this, but it just makes me tense for some reason). My main rules are: No barking at stuff, and when I make a 'gee-up' sound (a clicking noise I used to use on horses), either catch up (stop sniffing) or change direction where I'm headed. Oh, and no peeing on the stuff in people's front yards! Apart from that I'm pretty unfussed, I like them to have some sniff time so they get some extra mental stimulation and fun. I pretty much stop whenever my girl wants to sniff since she doesn't do it too often, but my boy is less discriminating so I move him along a lot. I train them to walk on either side of me too, for agility as much as anything. ETA: oh and sometimes I have to remind them they are not huskies and I am not a sled!

I Shazam'ed it on my phone and it came up with no matches. Looks like Shell is your best bet at finding out

Hi Tejas - and another welcome to kelpies! Like Kavik said, they are a joy to train because they are so smart and want desperately to make you happy :D I have been working from home since I got my 2 rescue kelpies, but I'm about to start working in an office They will be alone for about 7 hrs a day during the week, so I'll share what I have planned for them - - Every morning, an hour of off-leash fetch and leash walking to tire them out (which is what they get now anyway; you'll need to work up to off-leash-time with recall training) - Every morning breakfast will be either a frozen kong toy stuffed with kibble/yoghurt/tuna/banana/whatever or a meaty bone each to keep them occupied during the morning - I know from experience that they sleep from about 10am-3pm - With the extra money I'll be earning, I plan to get some extra toys like a home-alone tug - Currently my OH gets home early, but if he goes away for work I will try to find a dog walker to take them out a few afternoons a week, since I know they get restless around 3:30-4pm - Like Persephone said, even 10-15 mins of daily training will help tire them out through mental stimulation, either obedience or tricks work (or handy things like putting away their toys or closing the fridge door, which I'm working on now) If they have a comfy place to sleep where they feel safe, they are more likely to snooze the day away. Mine are allowed inside on the couches but if you don't trust your dog inside alone yet a cosy kennel or crate in a quiet spot should help. Best of luck, I hope you get lots of enjoyment from your new family member!

I was going to say dobe too. This website might give some ideas in the size wanted - http://www.brunswickcentralvet.com.au/weight-ideal-bodyweight-range-for-your-dog-breed

I've been trying to convince my parents to get an older ACD to herd my 84 year-old grandmother's cows, so grandma doesn't have to be out there chasing the neighbour's bull off with a stick! (true story) Of course they might not have your typical retirement.