MishB

wasnt going to look at this thread, but so glad I did :D :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: Must go check oyut the website now, & try shoving bread on my dogs heads :laugh:

I had a blue heeler ages ago that used to pull the washing off the line to try and catch the pegs when they flew off! He didnt ever bother with touching the clothes once they were down, it was so annoying, but funny too!

what about glasses? I was told that sometimes kids wearing glasses can be frightening for dogs because their eyes look bigger or reflect or something, I cant remember exactly. I am interested about this too, my youngest son seems to rub a few dogs the wrong way for some inexplicable reason except the glasses theory.

Drop Sherel a line at here. I am pretty sure she is still sending samples out :) thx, will do

Oh I just saw that, starts at 6.30pm for the demo's and then you can have a go yourself too! Appearently its tracking,retrieving,obedience,agility, DWD and RallyO. Id be keen to have a look at the tracking

Is the agility on Tuesday nights as well? I am tempted to rejoin Midland rather than going to ACWA It's so much closer!! I wan to know more about their Rally O classes :) THe rally o class starts at 7pm on a Tuesday night, I think Paul Skewes (their vice president) takes it, but Im not 100% sure. They had a lot of people doing it last week, it looks great. I have Pauls phone no if you want to have a chat with him about it :)

Is the agility on Tuesday nights as well? I am tempted to rejoin Midland rather than going to ACWA My newsletter says it is on alternating Thursday evenings with the dancing with dogs.Not Tuesdays like I had thought, oops. The dates Ive got are 17th May (tonight), 31st May, 14th June, 5th July, 19th July,2nd Aug,16th Aug. They start at 6.30pm. :)

Love, love, love this race. Thx for the info guys

Thanks for the ionformation. I think everywhere is going to seem so different this posting as I've only every been in Sydney and Brisbane. We are currently looking at W.A. and South Australia (can't remember the third prefernce) which a both very very different to Sydeny Perth is dog-training heaven - so many great dogs and great trainers there. Maybe no flyball, but they're super for most everything else. (Says one who could hardly live further away Ive just joined Midland, they do obedience for all levels, Rally o, dancing with dogs, and Agility. Training is on a Tuesday night, its a lovely club, not too big, & the instructors are awesome. :)

My kids only get a command once, and then I make sure I can enforce it! I dont repeat it, same as with the dogs, I do use a lot of the same principles in my kid training...I just dont click and treat them pmsl :laugh: :laugh:

That is a bit Max Markson, he did say that it was the best fun to hang your head out the window of a moving car and bark when he was on celebrity apprentice last year! :rofl:

Hi, Im wondering if I can get sample packs of BH to try before I commit to buying it? because I cant just go to my local city famers & grab a bag of it, so I dont want to spend a heap on postage only to find they hate it. I am feeding Royal Canin at the moment, which is great, but I wouldnt mind giving BH a go, seeing as people rave over it. I did try eagle pack but my boy wouldnt touch it, so I was able to return it to better pets & gardens for a refund, thankfully, as paying a lot of $ for a food they wont touch is painful on the hip pocket. Any distributors in WA do samples?

Thanks for the info,SparkyTansy. I wouldnt enter more than one myself especially when Im so new but I looked at the back of the entry forms and did wonder if some people did enter a heap of classes. I will have a go at sweepstakes when they come up if I can, they sound like something a bit interesting.

its like in the movies fight scenes where the gang all wait their turn to attack the guy in the middle! I wouldnt like any of these cops to be in charge of my safety thats for sure!

what a difficult situation to find yourself in Good luck with whatever you decide xx

Our male GSD is 2 & 1/2 yrs old, he is friendly with other dogs but has never really liked them touching his ball/toy if we are at a park etc. Being a big, young male he can be very boisterous with other dogs which sometimes leads to doggy arguements at the park, some dog owners would say he is being aggressive when in reality this isnt truie, its a case of the other dog gets annoyed & yells at him, he yells back & leaves the dog alone.Other owners if they arent used to big dogs can get worried by this ( cant blame them,it can look scary) but he has never been bossy with older dogs, & has fairly decent doggy manners (touch wood).He is a big dog though & I am always concious & in control of him when we are out. He is not overly dominant but we have always made sure that we do the simple things like feeding him last, he is not allowed on lounges, he has to 'do' something before any attention ( a sit/drop/stand/whatever) my kids do this as well, they are 9 & 12.I have always been comfortable taking a toy/food/bone away from him, I have made sure I have been able to take stuff off him as soon as we got him, super important in my opinion especially with kids around. occasionally I will do this just so he knows I am able to do whatever I please. I do give him his bone/food back, its more of a 'Im the boss' thing.I have & continue to socialise him with heaps of different people, animals, environments since we got him and maintain a training routine. We added a male Brittany pup (medium breed)about 3 mths ago. I set up a puppy pen inside my family room,& we kept the pup in there when it was food time, bed and rest times or whenever I couldnt directly supervise contact between the dogs for the first month. Our older dog usually sleeps outside but he slept inside when pup arrived, pup in its pen & Neo where ever he wanted (he has a bed inside too). I got up and toileted pup,& he went back in the pen.In the morning I toileted pup, they had a play together, I was always out with them, breakfast time, & back in puppy pen for naps. I also stepped up the amount of time I spent with my older dog, I walked him a couple of times a day so he didnt have quite so much energy when he ws playing with the pup. I made sure that our older dog was always patted first, pup was ignored until Neo was given his attention, this was done by every person who entered our house,not easy when every kid in the school wants to pat the new puppy. At feed times, I divided my older dogs food up into portions so that he ate when the pup ate, they were both told to sit & wait for food from day 1, Neo's bowl went down first, & then pups, then I would release them to eat. Pup was always fed in his pen. Neo was fed nearby in the family room, he has always been fed there. After the first week I started letting them have a bit longer play time together, pup was still very small so I did a lot of sitting in the yard watching, as soon as it got too rough pup was put back in his pen. After the first few weeks I made a pen outside so that the pup could be outside but seperate from Neo when I wasnt outside, he had a kennel in that pen, & he slept outside in there. As he got bigger, we slowly were able to leave them together for longer unsupervised until eventually we are a happy 2 dog home. I didnt leave any high value toys outside with the dogs, but left lots of chew ropes, empty coke bottles, outside, I had 2 or 3 of each toy so there was plenty for everyone, this worked well for us. Our older dog does reserve the right to have whatever bones, toys or sticks he feels he wants, the pup just has to let him take them, at first our older dog would just walk up and take every toy off pup because he could, now it only happens occasionally. They get along extremely well, nowadays pup is 5 mths old, I have 2 kennels, 2 trampoline beds outside, they both sleep outside, usually in the same kennel (its a bit tight :laugh: )I feed them both together, supervised, both dogs sit & wait for food. They eat in the family room after the humans have eaten breakfast & dinner. The older dog gets attention first, pup just has to wait, if he barges in before Neo has had his pat then Neo will tell him off.Our pup knows from a slight turn of Neos upper lip that he shouldnt do whatever it is he is doing at the time. They have the occasional spat, more of a case of pup getting told off for whatever reason, I leave them to sort it out themselves as long as I cant see any 'abnormal' aggressive behaviour. What looks aggressive to us is usually a lot of noise and gnashing teeth with minimal contact. I know that as pup gets older our pack dynamics will change, you just need to educate yourself on what kind of stuff is normal doggy language & observe your animals closely so you get to know their moods, especially when a silly puppy doesnt know when its time to leave the older dog alone. I dont know if you need a behaviourist, this is what has been my experience so far of adding a new dog. I hope I can give you some ideas We had tryed a rescue dog as a second previously, but I quickly decided that it was going to take too long to establish a new pack heirarchy between 2 adult dogs when I have children who could accidently get caught in the possible crossfire.So for us a puppy was definately the way to go. Good luck :)

They have posted me out the forms so I am all excited now :D

HI, I am confused yet again, what are 'general specials' ? Ive probably been told what this is but I cant remember. I have noticed that there are a heap of different conformation classes no's 1 - 11. When working out which one to enter my dog in, do you enter in 1 of these classes, or do you enter as many as you wish? The way I read it at the moment I could possibly enter in classes 2.minor puppy, 3.puppy, 6.novice,7.graduate,10.australian bred,and 11.open all in the one show. Not that I would want to do that, I just want to know what the rule is regarding how many classes you are able to enter. PLus if there is a sweepstakes in the age group you could also enter that too? I am only entering my pup in baby & then going into minor puppy when he is 6 mths, thats all I want to do at this stage :)

I agree. Oh God Yes, Yay for Pudsey not being dressed up!!! :laugh:

OMG they are so cute!!!!! The dogs I mean, not the show stackers :laugh:

I agree, it definately needs a rethink. I think the councils need a rev up to get their rangers to actually do their job too.

Its a pet hate of mine when you are walking your own dog on lead and ppl 'allow' their off lead dog to approach me & my dog. He is a GSD & friendly off lead but is very boisterious so a lot of dogs get overwhelmed by him, so I keep him on lead when at a park. But then he gets quite narky with dogs that come up while he is on lead, so then ppl say things like hes aggressive, I cant win

I don't think that a mastiff or an american bulldog is a restricted breed, so I am not sure how it could be deemed to be a restricted breed? What is disgraceful is that the dog that attacked your dog wasn't declared dangerous! It doesn't matter if it is a first offence. I don't believe that the act needs to be changed, just enforced. A friend had her dog attacked, the owner of the attacking dog paid the vet bills and the attacking dog was declared dangerous. And it was all done by the ranger and the dog hadn't attacked before. What I would like to see though is rangers being paid to collect wandering dogs after hours and owners being fined for repeatedly letting their dogs roam I was under the impression they were a restricted breed, I must be getting the bully breeds confused, I honestly dont know a lot about them, I used to like them but after what happened with that dog am scared of anything that remotely looks like them. Which I am trying to get past, as I know this was a really extreme instance. The dog actually jumped up and smashed its head against my security door 3 times, then went back across the road to its house, but then when I tryed to get out my door to get my dog to the vet it ran straight back over & repeated the head banging. Ive never seen anything like it before and hope to never see anything like it again. In WA the owners of the other dog arent under any legal obligation to pay the vet bills, you have to take them to small claims court if they dont pay. The ranger told the other owners to pay our bill but they never did, & thats what we were told by the council when we inquired. There needs to be more rangers employed in Joondalup thats for sure, we have 2!! I was also told that the only way that they can pick up a dog that has attacked is if you phone them while it is attacking!! WTF 'wait, stop biting my arm/leg/pet, I have to call the ranger! Okay now you can go again' which is ridiculous. I told them the fencing was inadequate, but the ranger said he had inspected it and it was fine. There were fence pailings missing & there ws a wheely bin put up against it! They also should have declared the dog that attacked mine dangerous, they didnt, it got out & attacked someone elses dog again 6 wks later,(my hubby & neighbor stopped that attack thankfully) was impounded, they couldnt contact the owners so after 6 days they assessed it for rehoming it was deemed unsuitable and subsequently destroyed! I know this because I rang the ranger services avery day because I wanted to know if it was returned to the property again. I was too afraid to walk my dog if it was allowed home again. I am pretty sure that ranger resigned soon after.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/news/13657221/heartbreak-after-dogs-mauling/ I read this acticle yesterday, its so sad. Why hasnt the WA Dog Act been changed yet? I am so angry that a dog that has attacked and caused a huge amount of damage to another dog previously is allowed to just go back to its owners, with no consequences. So it is then able to attack again, this time fatally. I have had a very similar experience with a dog attacking my dog, it was allowed to go home, because it was a 'first offence' despite the fact it had dragged us across a busy road,had repeated its attack on my dog after being pulled off by a few men, then it tryed to smash its way through my front security door 6 times to get to my dog again. It was not declared dangerous, or deemed to be a restricted breed (it was a mastiff/AB x) as the ranger told me they would have to do DNA tests to prove this. Bloody WA rangers shit me sometimes! Rant over.

That is so terribly sad.Stuff like this makes me feel physically sick. I am at a loss as to how we stop it happening, it seems to be occuring with more and more frequency that it is frightening. :(