Steph M

That's archaic thinking. Wouldn't let that stress you out! Hahahah they obviously don't own Whippets. YOu are definately NOT their master, they are far to regal for that type of talk :) I also highly reinforce - especially my pup - for coming to me, if I call him or he just comes back, now it is a game, he zooms as fast as he can to get a reward. Shocking way to train a dog :) Rosie has that whippet aspect. I can almost see her rolling her eyes sometimes. Yep. Totally cruel, you should just boot them into submission

That's archaic thinking. Wouldn't let that stress you out!

Oh my.....HAHA!

How do these people think they pick up tricks or habits? By adding value to the action. I've had the same thing, while training Rosie to come back to check in with us while at the park rather than just bolting around and around and around us and losing us I shovel cheese into her face and love her right up every time she comes to us whether called or voluntary and I've had one woman say I was spoiling her fun making her come back to us when she was clearly having so much of a blast running about. Perhaps they didn't know how much Rosie likes cheese...

Our park has a tennis court too and they leave the gate open and frequently end up with an overexcited retriever trying to shove as many balls in his mouth as he can whilst still saying hi to everyone playing and pretending to not hear me. It's quite a sight! Still, one will play tennis in a dog park with the gate open...we've only had rapturous laughter as the response yet.

There are a surprising number of dog toys out there that look a bit 'suspicious', or maybe I Just have a dirty mind :laugh: Steph & Huski ~snorts~ pmsl :laugh: You guys should subscribe to dog snobs. They have a blog post occasionally where you have to choose which is the dog toy...and which...isn't. :laugh: Glad it wasn't just the dirty old men down the park that saw it. You don't know yourself until you find yourself welding that down the park!

Hahahaha glad it's not just my long suffering mower... Gus's best fetchy friend is a Tyre Biter retriever. Although more than 2 people have pointed out to me it looks like a sex toy so it hides in my bag when it isn't in his gob. Admittedly it does.... http://www.prestigepetproducts.com.au/productimages/94-31040F.jpg

I tend to stick to dummy shaped things as Gus is better bringing them back, no idea why but he's just not a big ball dog. (No pun or anything inappropriate!) We do have a ChuckIt ball he loves, but he would pick a longer shape any day of the week. I had no idea. Pretty sure everyone has a tennis ball or two hanging about the yard! Pardon my skepticism too, I had no idea and it is one of those age-old things, dogs and tennis balls. Lucky I run them over with the mower too often to have many about. Haha.

Morning all! I was at the beach yesterday and a friend of mine mentioned you shouldn't be throwing tennis balls for dogs if they’re human tennis balls because the ‘glue and coating’ are different on human tennis balls to dog tennis balls. Is this a load of poopie and a way to sell ‘special’ tennis balls out of pet shops (this friend works in a pet store and did learn that from her boss, so I am dubious) or is there a real risk (other than choking)? It doesn't make much difference to us, Gus isn't big on tennis balls unless he finds one down the park and then it’s a rare treasure and one to be shown off to everyone, but an interesting point as I think we've always had tennis balls floating around… Eeek!

Perfectly good defense! Hahaha!!!

Same. Hahaha!

I was about to say the same thing... Do you remember that guy who got lost in Alaska and starved to death? His name was Christopher McCandless and a film was made about it. It's called Into the Wild and it was directed by Sean Penn, who had a kind of obsession with the story. There are some interesting articles about it in the references section. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_McCandless I read that book and got so angry while reading it. It was a huge wank, what a pretentious little snot....

Very true I totally agree, but what I don't get is when professionals require a dog to bite and cause some damage in a working role, why don't they use just "any dog" on the basis that they all have teeth and they can all functionally bite? Why do they use specific breeds and character types when the ability to bite is said to be not breed and character specific? Seriously? Perhaps it's also a train-ability thing, or a drive thing or an inhibition thing. There's a lot more factors that go into selecting a working dog than just 'yep, has teeth and can bite!'

Haha yeah it is! It was last year’s Christmas present, just a fairly cheap one with a camera attached. It has little to no battery life, thank heavens, because I didn’t realise how hellish it would make my life. You don’t know fear until a buzzing helicopter flies in to film you in the shower. Hahaha! I will pass that on though! I’m sure he’d be interested in having a look if nothing else! Gus is a shiny boy, moreso now he's started growing big kid fur and having more raw. Hus fluffy butt is beyond a joke though...

HAHAHA! Daisy's face! Oh dear...

Gus weighs a happy 28.4kg at almost 7 months. He seems to be growing well to me but we’re attending the FC championship show on Sunday and he’s invited too so he can meet his father and breeder and umpteen million other flat coats and get a good look over (not to show, obviously!) The wart is almost gone, will update his wart thread with a photo when I get one. His retrieving is kicking ass, he’s really really keen and has gained loads and loads of confidence in the water over the last few weeks or so. He’s a great swimmer and really loves his fetching. I’ve got a video but it has my giant behind in it (thanks Brooke!) so might get another one this weekend…. We’re looking forward to the retriever training day in Nov! He’s also become really easy to walk at the park. He rarely leaves us and always keeps an eye on us and has what I would consider to be an exceptional recall, I thought we would never ever get there but he’s just a gem now. We’ve finally got more value than other dogs! It could be the pockets full of ham and cheese though… We start obedience again mid this month, with both dogs. Should be nice to get back, we had a break to settle Rosie in and let him teethe and do the cranky not listening thing and seems we’re coming out the other end just in time and he’s got a much MUCH better attention span these days too! Rosie is lovely too. She’s got a less than impressive recall but it’s miles and miles better than what it was! She’s stopped countersurfing but started digging. Obedience can’t come soon enough! A shell pool full of brickies sand and chicken necks seems to have made the difference there but if I forget to uncover it we find she’s trying to uproot the big trees in the yard by digging around the trunks? Odd little dog. She’s gained almost 2kg while with us but Dog knows where that is because she’s pure muscle and there’s not a scrap of fat on her so perhaps she’s just hiding it well. Things are blissful at our house! We’ve all been getting off our bums for an hourly walk down the park at night again and that seems to be plenty. Rosie runs and Gus lollops and swims. Everyone wins!

I can say I wouldn't have it any other way. Brooke and I are a unit for better or worse and we've agreed that even if we happen to split I would be sole carer and he would get holidays with them and could take them for a week or so at a time when it suited us both. He agrees that alone he wouldn't be able to keep up with it all full time whereas I would. It's very unlikely to happen though, but he had a cat with his ex and she took the cats with her and he really suffered and she used them as a pawn to hurt him, if we split I wouldn't do that to either of us. We do love them like our kids, as cliche as that is. Both the dogs are in our name, and even the cats who I bought with me are registered with him as the joint owner. Having the dogs bought together has been the loveliest thing, we've really become a lot closer through it and we both enjoy them and each other so much more than we thought we would. I do joke he can take the Persian who gets poo-dags and wakes up meowing at full pelt for no real reason at 2am....

And a sign alerting to this. Though I would be going for a real one and taking it to the cops. Utter a-hole!

This is a regular running half-joke at our house. I tell Brooke he can have the second best cat (again, running joke) and I get Hector and the dogs.

Well good breeder or none she would be a touch foolhardy to not be taking precautions just in case and cleaning everything in sight. I hope she does so, as parvo is awful but the worst thing is it can be spread so many ways. You can walk it into the house on your shoes, your car tyres or anything. I wouldn't be so quick to blame the breeder, it's a freak thing in most cases but parvo scares the sht out of me and I would be dousing everything in bleach just in case. Hope she pulls through, you must be beside yourself.

I know about that one, and certainly would run a mile!

Seems to say you can't receive any new messages! Mysterious!

Tried to PM you Cosmolo, seems you're too popular! ;)

Afternoon DOL-ers! I’m after some recommendations for a good daycare or similar in Melbourne. Happy to travel, I’m in the western ‘burbs (please please please don’t say Hairy Hounds!) We have some repairs and things that need to be done to the fencing and indoors at our place and figure it’s just easier to have the canines out of the way rather than risk disaster with the gates being open. I would love to have a really good daycare system in place for such days, we’ve had shocking luck so far and wouldn’t touch the previous with a ten foot pole! They are social butterflies and love other dogs so it’d be nice for them to have some company and I’d love to have somewhere that recognised them as individual personalities and treated them as such. I’m asking a bit, I know! Fire away!

This. We never met Gus, or his parents so went against all the rules there but I could find loads of mention of his parents, grandparents and breeder online. She came highly recommended and asked us a thousand and one questions and voila! We’ve ended up with the ideal dog for us. He’s got a different personality to his siblings and it’s quite evident as we all keep in contact and each has been fitted to us and fitted right in. I mentioned I’d like to try out some retrieving and he has a much higher drive to carry and fetch than a few of his siblings. We’re not runners, and nor is Gus. He’s comparatively lazy when put next to his sister who is itching to start running with her owner. A lot of that is nurture as well as nature but we’ve all commented how easy the transition was and how well the pups have fit in which can’t just be dumb luck!