BCNut

I guess you'll have to meet someone thats willing to lend you use of their farm critters :) I'm not sure if you meant how do you actually do the socialising or how does one find farm critters or both lol... I have 3 chooks and 3 ducks. Have always just kept the pup on lead around them so they can't practice any chasing behaviour and rewarded for calmness around them. When they're bit older/worked on this to the point where you trust them enough and have solid recall and/or leave it installed work up to long lead and finally off lead. Personally I wouldn't ever leave my dogs and poultry in the yard unattended regardless of level of training. This is just for while i'm here and can keep an eye on them. But i'd be keen to hear of others experience with this too...

That pic of the dog in there upside down is gold!! My boy has a rogz bed - $220 goes without saying due to his bed-eating-habits this one is for supervised use only :laugh:

She doesn't look skinny or anything - but hard to tell as she's all fluff! And certainly not short on energy - very active, hard to stop her from screaming around everywhere at warp speed :laugh: so thats probably keeping her trim too! Ok, thanks, i've sent an email to the breeder. Also booked in for vet on wed so we'll see how we're going then. Cheers :)

Yeah she demolishes brekky and dinner and cleans the bottom of the bowl :) Didn't wan't the bickies for training today but she will by tonight, guarantee it...i'll try increasing the quota given for brekky and dinner and miss lunch for now I guess.

Maybe...! Don't think its too soon? Esp. being underweight is my concern I guess. If it's as simple as that, big relief! :) Just scared to start changing anything i'm feeding to something more tasty - as I did this with my 1st BC and he's now so picky its ridiculous! lol!!

Hi all My 13wk old BC girl has started walking off from her lunch. Routinely devours breakfast and dinner but just the last 2 days has shown no interest in lunch. Frustrating because the vet said she's about 20% underweight when she had her shots at 10wks - and I don't feel much difference between then and now when I run my hand across her ribs and back She's on Canin puppy. It's a difficult situation because I want to instil good food bowl behaviour as in, eat when you're given food and finish it up. I've always understood that you should take the food away if she walks off, or stops eating or hasn't finished in 10-15 mins, and if this occurs give half the regular amount until the bowl is emptied then return to full quota. The training treats I use are high quality - real meat, fritz and cheese and she really loves this. But she only gets this stuff for things I consider really important - toilet training, new behaviours and puppy school - other stuff such as eye contact and puppy zen/impulse control type exercises are done with her biscuits. My rule has been no training unless you finish (or very nearly finish) your biscuits - so as to not teach that she gets to eat the good stuff if she thumbs her nose at the bickies. Any thoughts and advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks! :)

Haha I did think about that...considered putting something in the topic title along the lines of 'not a dog!!'

Awesome thanks! - Order is in :) Do you know if the lure thingy can be changed later if it gets mangled?

Hi Steve, Do you know if k9pro will be making these available again soon? Currently unavailable at that link. Or should I contact someone else directly? Thanks

Yes absolutely! Would love to help out a rescue! PM me some details of where they are headed and i'll go by the post office and get a price.

Aw shucks guys Just hate waste! :)

Hi all I have a set of fast red dog booties that were only worn once by my young man. Originally got them to stop him skidding everywhere on my timber floor but as time went on he seems to have found some balance :) They are 5.5cm across and about 7cm long so they suit a small male border collie or decent size female as a guide. They are stamped size 5. Good quality ones from a shop here at Harbour Town, I think they were about $50 new. Happy for drop off within reason around Adelaide area/metro fringe/some country towns (I get around!) Or if you're interstate happy to post if you fix me up for postage, they don't weight much. Thought i'd put them up here (before they get chucked - having a clean out), hopefully save someone some money - don't know where else I could donate them? Cheers!

Awesome, thanks all. Will check out the Weatherbeeta's tomorrow and can go through cleanrun if I decide to go the mutt mat way! :)

Baha. Nah maybe something slightly more sturdy and comfortable than that... ;)

Hi all :) Was wondering if anyone can recommend a good travel mat - I really like the ones from muttmats.com but it doesnt look like they ship internationally, have sent an email but somehow don't like my chances. Something fairly thin, that can roll up with a strap around it to take anywhere as my furkids and I travel alot. If anyone knows of somewhere in Oz (or ships international) that do them that would be great! Thanks!

Ok, thanks for the thoughts everyone, appreciate it :) Will give it a try and see how we go.

Hi all, Keen to see if anyone is familiar with the concept of 'In your face recalls' for puppies? I read about it in 'The Focused Puppy' by D. Jones & J. Keller. If you haven't heard of it, the sequence is: Pup's name, recall cue, click, treat. This is performed with the pup directly in front of you and there is no expectation for the pup to actually move. The idea is that it makes a positive association with recalls. I personally don't understand this - it seems to be something like the name game/eye contact with a recall cue in it?? It just seems that it would be confusing to pup - we would be performing the same behaviour with two different cues? Any thoughts? Cheers

I think good old plain kongs are worth their weight in gold if you haven't been down that path already, dividing up their bikkies and using one of many different methods to change the difficulty. I found this video a good start : Buster cubes are good as well. Of the Nina Ottosson stuff i've heard the Casino is good...but looking at it, looks very chewable

Loved the vid!! Inspiring!

My 8wk old BC is very vocal - has barked enthusiastically at my neighbours sprinklers, and the chickens so far. I just walked away both times. I've heard this can be effective - apparently if you add to the noise by adding your voice into the mix; you're 'joining in' with the alarm and encouraging the behaviour.

Agreed as said above; i'd be asking why - he/she (vet) needs to back his/her statements with evidence. I'd never leave a dog completely unsupervised with bones as they can try to swallow some. Chicken necks are a perfect example of this - giving them frozen, however, prevents this risk. I understand that the gut lining of our canine companions is not as sensitive to salmonella and e.coli as that of a human. As long as you follow reasonable hygiene practices as you would for your own food there's no reason why this should be an issue.

Interesting to read this. My vet freaked when she learned I had Calvin on BH puppy. Due to the high fat, protein and crude ash content. Recommended I do a 50/50 mix of BH and one of several other brands recommended until I had finished it. However - I believe Calvin was doing fine on it. No vomiting/GI problems and stools no issues.

Mine started putting his nose up at lunch ~5mth mark. I think this is generally accepted to be about the time to reduce to a morning and evening feed.

Agreed. Puppy school isn't really about training your dog - it is foremost an opportunity to safely socialise and make other dogs an enjoyable experience, secondly it's an introduction to training concepts. I would be very confident in saying that a good, well structured puppy school would bring your pup out her shell. I didn't see the point in it at first either then I went to one :)

Welcome :) You shoud put some photos of Dexter up! I would check out those links that persephone has put up; I found them great as a first time puppy owner myself - especially Ian Dunbar's puppy training e-textbooks 'Before you get your puppy' and 'After you get your puppy'. He focuses on socialisation and bite inhibition which I believe is really important especially with dogs that have extra strong jaws. Also give youtube a good browse and check out a few channels on there for lots of free resources. Channels like: Dogstardaily krisskris1468 tab289 Good luck and enjoy!! :)