Two Best Dogs!

I wanted to look at choices comparisons of the insurance company plans to see where mine go but... choice wants me to pay a membership fee to access. Um I think not. I went borderline bankrupt last year in the cancer scare and thymes eye. Never again. I’m going to stick with having insurance

Waiting it out just made Thyme more tense at the concept of being left alone and would amp him up unnecessarily. The ignore and wait it out just made him worse even though he would stop after a bit. It ended up not being alone being the issue, but the “act of departure” a trigger for upset. One thing I had success with and wish I had done when Thyme was younger and will do so on the next puppy: Not just cold dumping them in the room to be alone at night to cry it out. Instead, Ease them into it like a gradient. Like when you’re slowly heating up a lobster in hot water- you do it subtly so they don’t event notice that each time on their own is longer. Eg. Start 30 minutes earlier on bed time. Pop puppy in the laundry and close the door. Immediately open and give some calm gentle pats for a minute or whatever the puppy likes that isn’t wildly exciting like food. Then get up and leave again for 10 seconds. Come back and get some sweet calm pats. Get up and leave and close door for 20 seconds. Go back and give puppy a couple of calm pats. Close for 30 seconds then go back for some calm pats. Then continue on at 40 seconds. 50 seconds. Then a minute. Then throw in one at 20 seconds. Then a minute. Then a minute 20 seconds. A minute 40 seconds. Back to one minute. Back to 1 minute 40 seconds. After 2 mins I could usually jump to 3 mins. Then 4 mins. Then 5 mins. He might whimper a bit but the goal is to limit the suddenness of it and ease them in to the alone times without goiing into a panic and rehearsing the alone behaviour or experiencing that stress. It took thyme a few weeks of dedicated practice but he was a year old when I started doing that. You would likely have faster success with a baby - both because less history of their feelings to undo and also a shorter attention span ;) also play this this game with the laundry pen during the day for a quick bit to help generalise the skill and build confidence that it’s “not forever”.

Awww fun! I’ve started doing this and it’s so much fun! The breaks are on because although it doesn't show well, we were going downhill for the first time and I was nervous haha. Not ready for full speed!

I've had two embarks done Embark does not forward your results on to anyone you do not want to, so nobody need see your results. Nor can anyone demand your results be made public. Embark does not report your dogs results to anyone. What you do when making your dog's account, is set all the settings to Not Shared as Leac has screenshot. If you have multiple dogs you can then have it set to all dogs on your account, or just the one dog. You can even opt out of having your dogs dna contribute to research if you want to. Should you wish to share your dog's health results with the vet, be mindful that also includes the breed make up on the first page. However, the vet sharing is not mandatory and is entirely up to you (you have to type their email in and press send or download the pdf and print it out).

I am so sorry you're going through this I went through very similar last year and I think it was quite possibly the worse experience of my life. I opted bone biopsy and CT scan. My dog however is much younger than your dog, and the xrays were not showing as an advanced illness as you, so the bone biopsy and CT scan were to find out *what* we had (super early cancer? infection? something else?) and determine our course of action. The bone biopsy recovery was a truly miserable time, I felt like I could do nothing with her for fear of making things worse. It sounds like your xray it is advanced enough the diagnosis it is obvious though. A repeat xray in a few weeks would also likely confirm, because of how fast osteosarcoma and cousins attacks the bone. And the shoulder is an unconventional place for it to present If your course of action is likely the same regardless if it is cancer or something with similar effects, then the biopsy is likely unnecessary except to answer your wonderings. Especially since bone biopsy weakens the bone and reduces activity even MORE for an entire month there is no "right" decision, just what is best for your dog and yourself financially. It doesn't help the dog to drown yourself in debt or for your last few months to be miserably restricted. I keep the quality of life measure in mind for pets, when it comes to trying to "know" when it is time. https://journeyspet.com/pet-quality-of-life-scale-calculator/ I also try and keep in mind...my vets won't let me make the wrong decision. If it is too early, I trust them to let me know. If I'm pushing it a bit too long beyond what is kind to the dog, I expect them to let me so. I'm the owner, there's no way my mind will be clear so I need my vets to help me on that stuff. There are a dog cancer support facebook group. It is very good for connecting with people, but also to caution those taking advantage of people's desperations to sell snake oil products with no consideration for the other medications dogs may be on. One recently hastened the death in a painful way on the dog, instead of easing its pain, due to how it conflicted with the condition on hand (the product seller got kicked out of the group). Remember to check with your vets for any alternative medications you might be tempted to use - to make sure it can mesh and compliment the existing medication and not inadvertently hamper or cause harm. I also found it very helpful to follow dogs on isntagram who also are working with the big C. It was comforting to see others going through similar fears and doing their best to provide as much comfort and joy to their dogs as possible in their last few months or years (in some rare cases). Many internet hugs for you in this challenging time. Maybe you would like to share all the things that makes your dog so awesome and special in your life? Or to start recording all the awesome fun things you can do daily with your dog. No time like now to spoil them rotten

There’s a breeder recently in New Zealand of the bohemian wirehaired pointing griffon. I am not sure how this breed links or compares to the ?standard? wirehaired pointing griffin. Unsure if it’s a different name for same breed or cousin similar breed. But they are active breeders and post a lot on Facebook. They might be able to guide you to breeders? http://ceskyfousek.co.nz/ They use their dogs for hunting, so thus some pictures of the results throughout the site.

Thyme eats the same amount as Thistle. Except where she is 30kg... he is a teeny tiny 19.5kg. They’re both eating more than the recommended amount. He is a smidgen more active than she is, almost. Would depend on the day. They’re both pretty active. My theory is he burns the extra calories by sniffing everything so much. Doubles the outtake ;)

If the breed has an active facebook group, you could try asking around there? The ESS group is filled with lots of breeders who tend to know if someone has an older one needing a home or rehome.

Beautiful! What a lovely gift

Sometimes good to hear someone else tell me it’s not a big deal in the context of our tummy rubbin, definite double take on my part!

Hold with me, a bit of an odd question but. Is it possible to accidentally express the bladder of a dog while giving a tummy rub? She is somewhat urinary incontinent to begin with, but we were both equally surprised when a (rather vigorous) tummy rubbin turned into squirting we all went outside for a pee break...

I have a very similar street. I would be more than happy to catch cats and hand them over to the council. Euthanasia would be much kinder than foxes, traffic or getting cornered in my yard by the dogs. Today i came out to a dead bird in my front yard. Last week I photographed a rather portly cat in the frog and bird sanctuary. I frequently see them dead on the road. I don’t see it as kind to the cats or local wildlife to leave them roaming. On the dog poop front. My local dog park has had huge issues with poop being left lately. The fenced area is shared with a football club who wants to make it on lead only (because this stops poop?) the group is being really proactive in reminding people to pick up their poop and any poop they see - or dog owners lose access. Its been noticed that although the council provides poo bags, they’ve been empty more often than not lately. So remember to bring bags!

What a lovely simple set up to give him some privacy, security and safety for all for meal times

I saw this DIY remote treat dispense and thought of you! if its too small to read, it's pvc piping. In the doorway is a hook or something to help hold it up to get more incline. they're rolling kibble down it.

We had to do two weeks of this liquid anti-infection eye drops after Thyme took a stick to the eye. They had to flush it out too, as some splinters were present we couldn't see. Infections in that area are awfully close to the brain (plus our eye was also injured, and we did not want to lose the eye!). If your eye doesn't seem to be coming better after a couple days, or god forbid starts to get worse, get yourselves to the vet.

I have mentioned on and off for years my desire to have a GPS tracker for the dogs! Alas all the ones popular overseas do not work reliably in Australia and the oh so popular radio ones do not work so great in the environments I go in (forests/mountainy), cost way way too much and came with undesirable features. But at last! By pure luck of mispelling the UK GPS tracker I was considering buying and being shown an Australian GPS tracker, I have two! They're called the NutTAG SEEK GPS (lol). I have had them 3 weeks now and I am pleased as punch! I even made me coworker go for a wander with one and tracked her down ;) The key was to buy the ones used by vulnerable people (e.g. elderly with dementia, children with disabilities). Turns out they come with a "pet owner" app option but they're still obviously geared to people. E.g. "Fall notifications", an SOS button, stationary timing alert. As an added benefit, they don't cost too much more than the imported UK dog ones but they're locally supported (the head office is in Melbourne) and I was heavily reassured by all the companies that use them compared to kickstarter based dog collars. They DO have a little sim card in each. I get a whole year free with telstra as part of my purchase, then next year will need to buy a $30 year plan. It's $30 for a whole year (+/_ SMS costs), I find that acceptable. They're intended for continued monitoring on people, but I am only using them for dog outings such as walks to track our kilometres or offlead outings as safety (plus humorous running maps!) My dogs wear breakaway collars at home and I would hate for the breakaway to come off in play and for Thistle to think "hmm, free chew toy!". It does have a geofence function I don't have turn on, that would send alarms if the dogs left it. They're pretty small and light weight. You access it through both a free phone app and a website portal. In emergencies you can extend guest access to people helping you to follow the tracker. Also! It can have up to four emails AND four phones to send alerts to! I am very excited by the two way call function. The dog side answers automatically, and I can turn speaker on remotely to (theoretically) talk to someone who has found the dogs but I am hoping to play around with teaching a remote verbal drop! It would take practice as it does distort my voice some. There's lots of different tracking modes. I have been doing "15 second beeps" on our outings. 30 seconds was just not frequent enough, they cover so much ground in 15 seconds and I want to share maps of their walkings! But you can change these remotely to save battery power in the event of a dog being lost with it on. Cons: The charge on/off alert isn't very accurate. I turned it off as I was getting charge on alerts while on outings. The little pouch is clearly for attaching to people's wrists or on a necklace or something and for humans not bouncy bouncy dogs. I added some velcro strips from bunnings to the pouch in matching black to ensure my GPSs stay IN the collar attachment Haven't had them drop out from satellite yet, but they can drift by about 15 metres. This doesn't fuss me as I'm pretty sure if I've lost the dog and I am now within 15 metres, I will find them. They only come in black, and I bought two. I attached hairbands to them to differentiate as they are "linked" to a profile. The hairbands are also a back up attachment to the collars. Here are some amusing pictures of some of our walks so far: You can just see our little colour coded hairbands! When they are charging they are awfully cute: Here is our first test walk, with the "beeps" sent at 30 second intervals. I did not yet realise I can disable the check in pins from view. But each checkin has a time stamp and the like: For Thistle, she blew off a recall a 56 and I let it go. At 60-61 she blew off another recall to go into the duck pond so I went over and leashed her. She was grounded for rest of the day from offlead shenanigans While Thyme still got to run about and stuff. I like that in this one you can see the moment I realised the 30+ ducks were NOT going to move off the path and was forced to leave the path to go around them :') My dogs are pretty good, but they're not "walk through the middle of 30+ ducks" good There's a playback function at assorted speeds, kind of amusing to watch it zip all over the place when off lead!

Aww poor little mite. T2 would get car sick as a puppy and intimidated by the car itself. I tried to make it as quiet as possible for him. I borrowed a puppy sized enclose crate (like the ones for planes? Where they cannot see out so it's nice and dark?) and filled it with softest of blankets, one of the heated puppy minder toys and a toy he could lick peanut butter off. I also found he was less car sick with the crate in the middle of the car (strapped in to avoid movement of course!) than towards the back or the front of the car. I think it was the most stable area for him. Yours may prefer the front to the back, but I think the stable enclosed darkened environment really helped him. After awhile he started just falling asleep in the car after he was done with his distraction toy which made his trips much easier. Even now as an adult, he has self conditioned himself. Once in the car starts he curls up in his spot and falls asleep. He has no desire to stand up or look out the window or anything while the car is in movement so I expect he still feels a bit poorly about vehicles but he is not throwing up, drooly or distressed. He just...curls up and takes a nap.

Oooh I've been there! But now I quite happily walk an excitable springer and a reactive bull arab cross in tandem on harnesses. It took time to get to this stage, but it has been worth it to build all our confidences. It's amazing what practice and good experiences can do to help you all be at ease! Our most recent success was double dog loose lead walking in our harnesses pass two reactive labradors * and I'm pleased as punch with my two idiots. What you will find most beneficial to help you with your new(ish) found fears is practice and good experiences for you both. This is where exposure in controlled and safe environments will help you most, and by extension help your lead handling so you're not sending all your nerves down the line to the canine end. Every time you pull him close and on short leads from fears, you are setting him on alert and alarm as well regardless of how he is attached to you. But knowing that and not doing it are very different things! I had that problem with my springer, and it was repeated practice in a managed environment that has helped me regain my self control on that and his leash reactivity pretty much disappeared. The circle method for loose lead walking helped with the rest of it and instead of reacting back he will circle around me and keep following (excitedly lol but he's a springer) You could practice walking in places at a safe distance where people are most likely to be responsible - eg. a pet store or at a dog sports event. I personally just spent my weekend lurking around the corners of the Dances with Dogs workshops (to see how my dog would feel about it (would need a few more visits to find out) and then wandering around looking at sheep (Thistle would dearly like to chase so wanted to practice some loose leash circle-handling and self control ) But honestly I would highly encourage some kind of group training environment - having a person who's hands are NOT occupied by a dog at current goes very far to helping ensure you can get some controlled positive experiences in being in and around other dogs - even if you need to start further away for your own comfort level. And as your confidence and good experiences grow, so does your dog's positive experiences and skills. Not only the support of a trainer, but you will hopefully get some human support as well. It is understated, but I think having supportive people who see you working hard and cheering you on is very important to rebuilding your own confidence and progressing DOL can help with that as well, but the in person support is absolutely valuable so I hope you can find some. Even if it is just a new walking buddy to help you settle your nerves. I got my walking buddy from DOL * I don't hold it against the guy, he's clearly working on his two dogs with some lovely custom looking head halters. I wish him the best of luck and will ensure we take another street if we see him again to let him have his confidence building successes too

Thanks LG. What a depressingly poor result. I am glad the husband informed the inspector and kickstarted their removals, do wish it had happened much much sooner. At least the dogs are out of such a poor situation. I follow some of the foster carers and new owners on social media. The challenges they face are so sad, but I am so pleased to see them blossoming into themselves. I do wonder where DogsQLD is in all of this, I have vague recollection the majority were registered pedigree. 135 puppies bred over two years doesn't at least warrant a check on the facility? Purebred dog bodies should be upholding good standards and care, and ensuring such.

That is so good! Too many think their dog growling and being really rough and constantly correcting other dogs is “good social skills”. Good dog social skills are much more subtle!

I went one further. I have a dog freezer and a people freezer

So sorry

Gremlins

Just passing by, but this came out this past week and covers much the same of breeders potentially overculling (by way of neutering) dogs for assorted reasons (colour, eye shape, genetics of assorted levels) that might otherwise help keep the gene pool flexible. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fvets.2019.00241/full?fbclid=IwAR1c97kFeUc-hAWes-6w2RY2fYkcLcu3NNJ6VNytrO_wR3mMCvda89AvrZs

The police did try shooting to distract it as it was still attacking the disabled man at the time they arrived but that didn’t do much. Contrary to movies police can not go around shooting will nilly in a suburban environment at a rampaging dog. This has happened very near me and is the hot topic in the community local group. I really feel for the son and his mother. Its so sad. I hope they get a biopsy or some kind of closure. And lots of counselling and support for what they witnessed. Such an extended attack.