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maddogdodge

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Everything posted by maddogdodge

  1. Love that firework photo Teekay!! I haven't had the opportunity to photograph fireworks in many years. I should make a note of it to see fireworks next time I get the chance! :)
  2. Ranga, your poodle is adorable!! :) And that kitten is so sweet... there is something about kittens... no one can resist them! :p Here's my week 1 photo. One of my 7 week old chicks, I believe she is female, which is a lucky thing because she's been my favourite ever since she hatched. I can't keep any more roosters at the moment!
  3. I wouldn't mind having a go at this :) Not sure how successful I'll be, but its worth a shot, I do love photography! Seeing as this is my first attempt at this, I think I'll do what a couple of others have done, and just go with the flow regarding a theme. I've occasionally searched through the 2014 thread, some really beautiful photos in there!
  4. Oh this is heartbreaking I'm so sorry that this happened... RIP beautiful boy!
  5. That standard poodle is stunning!!
  6. I have Heiniger Saphir Cordless Clippers, and in my opinion, even though they are pretty expensive, they are totally worth it! I absolutely adore mine, definitely quieter than the old Oster ones I had. They have a good battery life too, and they run so smoothly, and I love the way they sit in my hand, really comfortable. It is based on personal opinion to a degree though... most of the girls at my work aren't a massive fan of Heiniger clippers, they seem to prefer Wahl... but for me, I've never really liked wahl clippers at all.
  7. AngryTardis, I wouldn't say that reactive dogs react to every possible distraction. My dog Koda is reactive to most other dogs, and he is reactive to men when he is at home. He doesn't react to people in public, bikes, cars, skateboards etc etc. So dogs can be reactive to specific things and still labelled a reactive dog. What kind of dog have you got? It would make sense for him to react less when he is tired because he has less energy. What do you mean when you say your dog reacts to something? Eg. Aggressive, excited, fearful etc On another note, does anyone on here find that people (whether strangers or friends) make nasty comments about your reactive dog? I'm so sick of hearing people tell me to "keep that dog away from me, he's gonna bite" or "I'm scared of that dog, he's too aggressive" or one from today "That dog is a vicious mongrel, take it away" It probably shouldn't bother me, but it really does, Koda is my pride and joy and i just hate hearing people make such nasty comments... Does this happen to anyone else? If so, how do you deal with it?
  8. I haven't been in this thread for a while now. So sorry to hear about Stella's epilepsy BC Crazy Had a big win with Koda recently!! :D I have a 5 month old Golden retriever staying at my place at the moment because her owners are away on holidays, I said yes because i can easily keep her separate from Koda and i knew it would be a great training opportunity! Anyway so after a few days of her being here, Koda has slowly become more and more calm with her and slowly gotten to know her, now he has his first doggy friend in years!! :D I can have them together (with him on lead just in case) and they will be playing and having loads of fun together :) So wonderful to see! Yet when i take Koda for walks he growls and lunges at every dog that comes near him... I reckon its not that he doesn't like other dogs, its more that he gets so overwhelmed that he just doesn't know what to do with himself. I think for him to be around another dog he needs to get to know the dog slowly. Hopefully with training i will eventually be able to control his overwhelmed behaviour :)
  9. Oh yes, Koda gets heaps of treats while he is being good :) Koda is about 3 and a half, i was also told that 3 is the magical age. I do think Koda has matured and calmed down a lot lately but he still has issues.
  10. I'm feeling a bit chuffed right now!! :D So today i took Koda on his first proper walk in two years. I chose a quiet time of day so that there wouldn't be too many exciting things around. When i first got him out of the car he was very excited about being in a new place with so many new smells but i did feel like i had him under control. We started walking and straight away a Jack Russel came running down someone's driveway barking like crazy. Koda got reasonably excited but i corrected him a couple of times and he calmed down and we moved on. Because he was so excited about being in a new place he was pulling on the leash like crazy, but after about 10 minutes the initial excitement wore off and he was happily walking by my side. After we had been walking for around 20 minutes, we were walking past some houses and there was a very calm looking German Short Haired Pointer lingering around under a tree. Koda saw the dog before i did, but to my surprise he was exceptionally calm considering what i've seen him be like around dogs in the past. As soon as i saw him react slightly to the dog i corrected him quickly and he stopped looking at the dog calmed down and happily walked loose leash right past this dog!! I couldn't believe my eyes!! Also right as i was nearly at the car, a dog started barking in someone's back yard, this made Koda react but again, a couple of corrections and he was completely calm, submissive!! I am so happy right now, I feel so much more confident that i will be able to achieve my goals with him! :)
  11. I'm a bit late for the conversation but Staffyluv, I'm so sorry to hear about Zig! I've had an interesting turn of events the past few days. For my birthday my Mum got me series 3 of Cesar Millan's Dog whisper show. I've been watching a fair bit, it was very interesting to see him work with an Aussie who had basically exactly the same issues as Koda just more extreme. I thought to myself "why not give Cesar's method a go to see if it works with Koda." We had a very busy day at my house that day. Dad had lots of people coming with scrap metal and there was a big tractor moving silage bales around in the paddock near the house as well. So there was lots of activity and strangers around. I tried out the method of doing the 'chhtt' sound sometimes with a quick correction via a tug on the leash or a tap on the neck/shoulder area whenever Koda started to show signs that he was going to react to something. I am almost in disbelief of how effective this was, and I almost feel like I've been using the wrong method for Koda this entire time. Yes, I saw a behaviourist and she advised me to do the whole 'look and treat' thing. But with the environment at my house, it is almost impossible for me to keep Koda under his threshold all the time for that method to work. So Koda is responding to this new method much better. With the 'look and treat' method, Koda would look at me to get a treat, but he was generally still in an excited or anxious state of mind. Whereas when I tested Cesar's method on Koda, with only a couple of corrections I had Koda laying down at my feet in a calm submissive state of mind while there were cars driving in and out of the drive way, 4 strange people wandering around, a tractor going around in paddocks, and chickens clucking very loudly, it was just unbelievable! I think I'll be sticking to this method now, because not only do I feel more confident but Koda seems so much more happy and relaxed. Since that day, I've stuck to this new method, and Koda seems so much more relaxed and calm in general. Also everyone in the household has noticed that he seems more respectful of us in general. :)
  12. Gosh how awful for all of you. Is Koda ok? Only a guess but maybe she didn't recognise Koda with his muzzle on, and got territorial thinking there was a strange dog in her yard? As you say, you might need to condition them both to be cool with the muzzle. Yes Koda was fine, Dodge didn't bite him, she just lunged and growled. They both jumped up on their back legs while holding each other and growling/snapping but no one actually got bitten. Even if Dodge did nip Koda, his thick coat would have protected him. Both dogs were much better with it today, Koda is now happily walking around wearing it, and although I didn't let Dodge in with Koda, I did let them meet through the fence. That went really well, Dodge seems to have realised that the muzzle is not a bad thing :) I am a little concerned with the size of the muzzle though. Because they're not stocked in my area, I had to order online (something i hate doing if it involves sizing) anyway so despite the fact that we measured Koda's muzzle and asked various online stores what size they thought would fit (all of which said medium). I think the muzzle is too small. It does fit, but one of the top bars sits almost directly on his nostrils, and he has very little room to open his mouth at all. I wouldn't feel comfortable taking him out in it on a hot day, he'd overheat in no time. So hopefully i can get it swapped for a larger size... and then maybe i can finally get out there and do some training :laugh:
  13. My muzzle for Koda came in the mail this morning. I decided to start with a bit of positive rienforcement before i had to head out for the rest of the day. Koda was going really well with it, so i put it on him for a couple of minutes. In that two minutes, my Mum let Dodge (my Kelpie) into the backyard where Koda was, i could see she was acting strange, and all the sudden as Koda was trying to play with her, Dodge just lashed out and attacked Koda. This has never happened before, and so not like Dodge at all! I'm just presuming that Dodge was a bit freaked out by the muzzle... I'm going to work with it again tomorrow, hopefully i can get both dogs to be very happy with the muzzle.
  14. Yes, our petshop only stocks the metal cage ones and the nylon ones that keep the dogs mouth shut. Koda would hate the one that keeps his mouth shut, especially because it restricts their breathing! I'm hoping my muzzle will arrive on wednesday, seeing as tomorrow is a public holiday. Will definitely keep you guys posted on how things go when it arrives :) This click to calm book sounds good, I might go and see if my local library has it :)
  15. Wow, everyone's dogs are going so well! Hard work pays off i guess :) I too have a dream of camping with my dogs, but like Jake, Koda would need to be much better behaved. I love camping, but i'm used to going in a camper trailer, sort of a mix of a caravan and a tent, i do enjoy roughing it though. Hankdog, I was looking online at various muzzles that are available, and i found a few metal cage type ones that were designed for dogs with short noses, i don't remember the website though. I couldn't find a muzzle that fit Koda at our local pet shop, so i went online and ordered the Baskerville Ultra Muzzle. It sounds like a great muzzle, the dog can easily still eat, drink and pant through it. I am keen for it to arrive so that i can start getting Koda used to it and soon after that start taking him out again!
  16. Yeah, well he has sort of matured. He sort of loves being brushed now, especially if I give him a bone to chew while I am pulling at his tail & he is allowed in the house, but he has chewed through that many car harness that it is not funny So now he just gets tied up in the car with a wide collar & a chain, not ideal, I know, but better than him suddenly appearing on my lap while I am driving along the highway. He is so quick with the chews. Gosh, my boy hates me brushing his tail or pants area, but he doesn't bite, he just swings his bum away from me, I found a thundershirt helps with that. So glad i've never had any serious chewing problems with my dogs!
  17. Wow, thats a full on BC Sheena! Good to hear that he matured since then! I think that once Koda gets used to wearing a muzzle and sees it as a positive thing, it will help a lot. Not only because it will eliminate the risk of him injuring another dog but because it will reduce our nervousness, so he won't pick up on it as much and he will feel calmer :)
  18. Thanks for the advice guys :) Koda is a very happy dog in general, we live on 30 acres so he gets loads of exercise. But we are getting no where with the training while we aren't exposing him to dogs. I think i'll go and pick up a muzzle on Wednesday and see how things go :)
  19. Hey guys, I haven't been posting in this thread very often at all. For those who don't remember me, I have a fear aggressive Australian Shepherd. Long story short, we had a behaviourist come and help us earlier this year. This really helped me to get on top of Koda's reactivity towards strangers arriving at our house, still a work in progress though. The issue that needs tackling now is his reactivity towards dogs of the same size or bigger than him. I live in a small town which over the past year has become full of dogs of all kinds, so it is a great place for me to work with Koda on his issue. However, I still live at home with my parents, and my Mum has been very against the idea of me taking Koda out into the public with the possibility of an off leash dog approaching him. We have considered getting a larger dog to come to our house in a controlled environment, but we don't know any larger dogs that are controllable. So because of these two things, Koda has not seen a dog of the same size or bigger than him for almost two years now... not good, i know Today i got in a bit of an argument with mum again regarding taking Koda into public for training, and i suggested that we put a muzzle on him, just to eliminate her fears. I am perfectly happy to put a muzzle on him if it will let me take him out for training. My question about this is that I'm wondering whether having a muzzle on him would make him feel more insecure and vulnerable to other dogs? Of course, i'd use positive reinforcement to make the muzzle a great thing to him, and i'd probably get a wire one that still lets him pant and open his mouth. He's used to wearing a halti, so its not a totally new concept to him, but i'm still concerned that he'd feel insecure. He's never bitten a dog before, but there is a first for everything i guess... What are your experiences with using a muzzle on a reactive dog?
  20. Hello everyone, you might have seen me around the forum a bit... but i really only post in the Australian shepherd section... occasionally the Kelpie section.. :p I just discovered this thread so i thought i'd join in! I've had trouble with my Aussie, Koda since he was 11 months old (he is now almost 3 years old) It started when he slowly become reactive towards visitors at home. I tried so many techniques but nothing really helped that much. Soon after this Koda started to develop aggression towards medium-large dogs, he lashed out at quite a few dogs, and it really scared me out of taking him out places with me... so since then i've just walked him around our farm where i know i wont encounter any off leash dogs. I did try a Thundershirt on him and i noticed a significant difference in his anxiousness, but it still wasn't a permanent fix for the problem. Its always saddened me that my dream dog, who i got to do agility with, is aggressive, so I had a behaviourist come and give me some training advice the other week. Koda is responding incredibly well to the training, its really only been a week since i started the training and he's gone from going completely nuts barking and growling at people and completely ignoring me with treats to roughly 80% of the time he is focused on me, 20% he's barking at the person. I havent had the chance to do training around other dogs yet, i think that will be much more of a battle than the surprising results i've had with visitors! but still, these things take time! :) Its nice to read stories from others who are in the same boat as me, just so i know i'm not alone :laugh: and there's so much helpful info here too!
  21. So i got the 600D i absolutely looooovvve it! Now i have got a DSLR i'll never be going back to a point and shoot camera! :p here are some of my first photos!
  22. Wow, beautiful photos! :) and gorgeous cat too!
  23. OP OP OP OP OPPA GANGNAM STYLE! :D lol love it!!
  24. Thanks for the feedback! :) and thanks for the link to that site, i'll check it out!
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