Salukifan

It takes approximately 40 minutes to drive from one end of Canberra to the other. There are three obedience clubs that I know of. I would recommend travel to the one that best suits your training style. Things were a lot more positive when I was involved with a local club years back. I hope its not that one.

Thanks HW - yes I could - but the problem is all the sawing etc which I can't do and the cost to have someone do it (a couple of hundred $) for a couple of months is probably not worth it. I've just made an enquiry about the door on Gumtree that Boronia posted - as believe it or not its nearby and it would be easier to replace the whole door rather that try and install a doggy door in an existing thick wooden door. So I've asked for some measurements and will go from there. (Why on earth people put up ads without measurements is beyond me, but anyway...) Thanks tons... Agree with D3 - if the Gumtree solution doesn't work, take the whole door with you. Then the price of installation may be worth it.

Bear in mind that the only poodles you are likely to see there will be in full show clip.

If the place is to be demolished, can you put a dog door into one of the solid ones?

Lily is still good on the fang and barks with excitement at dinner time. She jumps into her crate for dinner. I just have to guide her as she can't see the entrance very well.

My immediate response is that any concerns about your dog's behaviour are unlikely to be 'cured' by going to a dog park. Quite the contrary. I'd say the kind of free for all generally found in a dog park may heighten anxiety. I wouldn't take any pup to one, let alone an anxious one. Get some professional help. The first step will be for a professional to tell you what is triggering the reactions you are seeing and then to assist you to deal with them. The other thing to remember is that you chose a breed that is not meant to greet strangers like lost best friends. This is not a Labrador!

My poodle boys were kept in sporting clip. Head puff only, short ears, short tail. I used to get asked what breed they were LOL

My oldest dog is 18. She definitely show signs of senility, she grows blinder and deafer but her heart, bloods and structure remain sound. She has monthly Bowen and chiro sessions and is on cartrophen. She eats RC Mini mature but still likes her bones etc. I reckon she sleeps over 20 hours a day. I work on the principle that if she can eat well and toilet herself and gets some fun out of her life, she's good to go forward. She still has crazy play moments, bless her.

Whippet. Mind you have I have poodles and highly recommend them. You could get one of each in time.

Yep. Then the dog is transferred into the new owner's name. I just hope you got accurate information from both forums!

Lily doesn't need steps. She has me. She barks when she wants something which is great.

When these sorts of issues come up, may I suggest a frank discussion with the pup's breeder. You've got yourself a giant breed, they take a lot of care to raise well and the best source of advice for that will be the breeder. A good relationship between breeder and owner can be of such benefit to you as a new owner and most breeders are keen to assist. :)

This really comes down to what the kids are like, your capacity to separate or supervise and how robust the temperament of the pup is. Toy pups are tiny. They are not up to be being grabbed, picked up or dropped by kids and with youngsters, teaching them that the pup is not a toy (as in plush toy) can be challenging. An overfaced pup will become defensive and that's not what you need. I know a Toy Poodle breeder who's raised her toddler among the dogs but crates, pens and separation have played a big role in keeping son and pups safe. This is something for discussion with any breeder AND for contemplation. It can be made to work but it would not be without effort. Mind you ANY pup and very young kids is work. Toys are tougher than you think. They love games and outings and can be very playful. But as babies they need to be treated with care and not over faced. I actually think the right mini would be a safer bet. A frank discussion with breeders, a plan on how to keep pups safe and a good breeder selection of the right temperament pup will all help achieve success.

This is incorrect. You do not require membership of your state Canine Control to own an ANKC registered dog. You require membership to exhibit it, compete in dog sports or breed. Sounds like miscommunication rather than a deliberate attempt to mislead. Most pedigree dog folk refer to "registered" as being ANKC registered (ie has a registered pedigree). ONLY the owner of a dog can life time register it with council. When you think about that for a moment, you'll see it makes perfect sense. If you don't care about the pup's papers being in your name, life time register the pup on the Companion ANimal Register and don't worry about transferring the papers. But DO make you you transfer the microchip details to your home - very important if the pup goes walk about.

That something is likely to be genetic. Corvus would know better but I've read a few studies that suggest it has a genetic component and it is certainly more common in some breeds than others. I recall Sue Sternberg commenting that in her experience it was no more common in a dog with a history of neglect and starvation than in well fed family pets. That suggests that the root cause of the instinct to guard is not human created. That makes perfect sense to me. I agree that a serious guarder is not a suitable dog for a family home. That, of course, doesn't help the OP one iota.

The best and only advice your friend should be heeding is legal advice. A contested ownership of this nature can be resolved through the local Small Claims Court. Your friend should beat a hasty path to the SCC Registry to initiate proceedings to regain his dog. The SCC court encourages and assists people to run their claims themselves. He has excellent evidence of 'ownership'. Court proceedings also tend to be a bucket of cold water over people behaving badly. I would also, as a matter of priority, get the chip registry to flag this dog's chip as either stolen or ownership contested. The last thing you need is the dog "disappearing" when the heat goes on its current holder.

Agree with going through breed clubs - that's going to put you straight into the ball park of breeders who have, are expecting or are planning litters. I went through precisely the same thing looking for my first Whippet. In the end it came down to word of mouth. If you name the breeds, some of us may be able to help you. Sometimes it does come down a bit to who you know.

Edited.

But resource guarding isn't about a pecking order or dominance and that is a very common misapprehension. Dogs at the bottom of the pecking order are just as likely to resource guard as the pack leader. When the 18 year old poodle in my house is guarding her treasures, the alpha dog backs away unless he's prepared to have conflict to get it and the only thing that would make him aggress is food. I make sure that such incidents do not happen because what she values (generally my clothing) is of no interest to him. Resource guarding is about protection of valued items, not fear. So teaching a dog to give you toys isn't going to help proof against food guarding if the dog values food more than toys. It comes down to me to be about safety. The safest method of ensuring that there are no issues between family members (human or canine) about food is to supervise or separate when food is around. That goes double for when there are children around that are not "pack". I have one food resource guarder. I can take food from him. That doesn't stop him guarding from the other dogs. ETA: Patricia McConnell does recommend the 'swap' method for dealing with excessive resource guarding. My concern would be that desensitisation to a certain set of circumstances isn't the same as extinguishing the instinct altogether.

I don't find it wildly acceptable that dogs resource guard. However as it is natural, instinctive behaviour that for the most part is made WORSE by interference, I think most "training" attempts should be avoided. My dogs are not children. This pup is not having a tantrum. Nor is it displaying dominance or any other such malarky as described by some "trainers". Furthermore, the fact that one adult can "train" a dog not to growl at them does not mean the dog will be proofed for others or most importantly for children. You want to see unsafe behaviour? Assume you've fixed the problem! So why not put the pup in a crate, increase its confidence that its food isn't going to be taken from it and let it eat in peace? Standard rule is my house is that each dog is fed separately in its crate and it never has to exercise resource guarding behaviour about eating. N one growls, no one steals. It's all very calm. Knowing what you can "train" and what is behaviour that needs to be managed isn't copping out.

If you are looking for reassurance about the RSPCA, I can't provide any. A bureaucracy focussed on fund raising rather than animal welfare and accountable to no one. Too many stories of failures to act and then Olympic grade blame shifting and arse covering.

. ANKC Main Register as a show/breeding prospect. Unless you have a crystal ball you can't say for certain that a pup will be good enough to breed from as an adult. Limit register prevents a dog from being shown, bred from (for ANKC registered pups) or exported. Plenty of pet quality dogs are Main Registered precisely because of that lack of a crystal ball. It's the breeder's choice as to which Register the pups go on.

yip. Whether or not the pup was sold for breeding is also beside the point. If the bite is so bad that the teeth piece the roof of the mouth then then the pup was not fit for sale. Of course it was fit for sale. Would you knock it on the head? What should have happened is that the issue with the mouth should have been advised.

What kind of a breeder are we talking about? An ANKC registered one? $2,000 as a deposit is hefty - more than you'd pay in full for a pup of my breed. As a non-refundable deposit, I think its exhorbitant. There is no "standard contract of sale" between ANKC breeders and puppy buyers. Most of the breeders I know personally don't TAKE deposits because they won't guarantee a pup before 8 weeks. All the breeders I know would rather refund a deposit than see someone take a pup because they felt they had to. Makes me wonder about the calibre of breeder you are dealing with. Again, I think Fair Trading would be the fastest method of resolving this.

I stamp a lot. Much as I hate flexi leads, Big Ted was kept on one in the end when the rest were off lead. He was pretty blind too and would just set off in a particular direction at the trot oblivious to my calls. Amazingly my pretty deaf poodle can hear the microwave ping though. :D