imouttahere

Thanks for the advice, Cosmolo. much appreciated.

Hi All,

I'm boarding my animals at this facility next week and saw they have training as well. Has anyone used them before?

Their website is fantastic and they sound really good.

I'm so glad I don't foster care anymore. Seeing some of the stuff that goes on between groups is enough to make me run a mile.

It's all so complicated now. Almost need a degree for it, or a course in temperment testing.

Your stuff looks good though Schmoo

Not everyone that fosters needs to know about how to test a dog. But every organisation needs to have people that do know how to do it, and there needs to be good communication between those people and the foster carers.

I would hate for anyone to be put off foster caring by your post. Foster caring may not be for everyone, but we have plenty of carers that find it really enjoyable and worthwhile. Having the correct procedures in place (to prevent the horrible things happenning that Cordelia mentions), actually make things a whole lot less complicated than groups taking short cuts and not following procedures.

You don't need any special skills to be a foster carer when you are with a group that will give you the right support. :D

I don't think I was with the right groups then :D To those prospective foster carers reading this thread, don't let my post put you off, just research the Rescue Groups you're interested in first and ask questions. If answers aren't forthcoming and/or you get the impression you are being treated like a Mushroom, get the hell out of there. It is a big pain in the butt and the hip pocket to get used and then cut off for reasons you'll never be told.

(The above does not relate to anything or anyone I have been involved with or been a part of in the last six months)

Almost need a degree for it, or a course in temperment testing.

There should be. It would prevent people looking at a photo and getting it stuck in their head that the dog is just wonderful yet misunderstood.

Too many people look at photo of a sad dog and get sucked in because it "looks like such a lovely dog".. what the?? A photo tells you NOTHING of a dog.

Too often dogs are rescued with an assessment that is so heavily based on emotions instead of actual knowledge... especially the people expected to foster the dog..... when homechecks are NOT done and transport people or foster carers are given completely false information (or completely fluffed up information in order to get them to take the dog) it is TOTALLY unacceptable. Fosters should NEVER be put in the situation of feeling bad about a dog they can't handle or contain (when fences have never been checked or if they have little kids, work full time etc) and transport people should NEVER be held responsible for having to make a decision to take a dog back to the pound because of the stuff ups and lies passed on by the people who organise a release.

Good post Shmoo!

hear hear

I'm so glad I don't foster care anymore. Seeing some of the stuff that goes on between groups is enough to make me run a mile.

It's all so complicated now. Almost need a degree for it, or a course in temperment testing.

Your stuff looks good though Schmoo

n/a

no longer assisting rescue/transport.

did you ask a vet what the go was with the puppies and Nutro? I'm really interested to find out what caused that.

Hydatid tapeworms don't come from fleas. They come from uninspected offal or muscle meat which may be infected with the hydatid flukes. You should not worry about hydatids if you feed only dry food, but if you feed meat or meat products or offal then hydatid tapeworm wormer should be on the agenda.

They get chicken frames and lamb offcuts from Woolies. I also get them chicken pet meat from the butcher every now and mix it with veges.

Does this mean they are at risk of H worm?

I love his show and have used his methods on my dogs with great success. He's definately a guy I'd love to meet

The heading pretty much covers my question.

I used to use Revolution but have bought some Advocate and just wanted to know if I need to administer anything else or does Advocate have it all covered with regards to worms etc?

Thanks in advance

Helen

edit: double post

Hi there,

Try the Natural Petstore. Its an online store based in the Sydney area. The service is fantastic and delivery is free for orders in the Metro area over a certain price. I get my Nutro from there.

Natural Petstore Link

Thanks so much Tangwyn

I don't know why it didn't come up in Google for me. I've saved the link in my favs and will use them from herein (I'm all for home delivery, those bags are bloody heavy).

So far they're loving it. I'm still feeding them raw as well and supplementing it with the dry.

I have been searching for weeks after reading about Nutro on here and could find only a Maleny website that sells it.

My local pet barn at Blacktown didn't know about it and pushes Science Diet....

Anyway I thought I'd check out Dural Pet Superstore on Old Northern Road today and yippeee!!! There it was.

Not sure if I got a good price, here's what I paid:

Nutro Indoor Cat 3KG $32.95

Nutro Dog Large Breed (Blue packet) 15kg $89.95

I got a 5% discount having bought two bags of Nutro and also got a container for both as well. The Dog food container is excellent and fits 15kgs and then some. (I'm a freak for animal food containers lol).

I know there are people like me on here who want to try this stuff and don't know where to find it so hopefully I'm helping someone here.

Can't wait to see what a difference it makes to Science Diet. Will let you know if a month or so :rolleyes:

did the materials cost alot?

Have a good read of the ingredients list and the guaranteed analysis on the labels of both dry and tinned products.

The first ingredient listed is important: e.g. Hill's Large Breed Puppy has Ground Whole Grain Corn as its first ingredient, whereas Nutro's is Chicken Meal.

Ingredients to avoid are corn and wheat, animal by-products, added colourants and chemical preservatives.

Ziwipeak make a canned range and their ingredients contain none of the above.

:D I feed Sasha Hills Large Breed Puppy biscuits! I've never heard of Nutro, what is that??? Is that Nutrience? Should I change to something else? What's just as good for large breeds?

I use Science Diet Large Breed Puppy. It is fantastic and I totally recommend it

Thanks :D My vet etc etc told me the puppy food generated growth too quick as it had too much calcium, protein etc for the large breed dogs????

Im totally confused

Norwest Sydney Animal Hospital told me it DOES NOT encourage fast growth and actually contains ingredients or whatever to prevent fast growth from happening.

I use Science Diet Large Breed Puppy. It is fantastic and I totally recommend it

Great to hear that the club sounds like it will be a good club. I know that you said they don't have another class starting till the 8th of July but can you pop down and watch a current class without your dog. Maybe then you can observe that they teach and it will give you a head start for when you have Emma in class.

Appologies to everybody if all this has been posted but I thought I would just briefly answer your questions.

Sounds like your doing a great job at discouraging them jumping and excellent work with the food bowl. Don't be overly worried about Emma not being keen when there is no food around at this stage. You don't just go from rewarding to not rewarding and she is only a baby - plenty of time to reduce the number of rewards a bit down the track.

You can find heaps of puppy training articles here: http://www.k9events.com/pups1.htm

On the toilet training front - do you crate her when she is inside at all - are you crate training? If you want to work up to having her sleep inside that is the best way. Dogs are very unlikely to soil there sleeping area so if you place the crate alongside the bed and take her out at regular intervals (or when you hear her stirring). Straight outside reward and then back in the crate. Puppies tend to be able to hold their bladders for the length of time in hours relevant to their age in months so at 16 weeks or 4 months the dog should be able ot hold it for 4 hours.

Eventually you can move the crate to another location when you are sure she will settle for the night and then just let her out first thing in the morning. When she can be trusted around the house you can either remove the crate or just leave the door open and Emma can sleep in there if she choses.

On the biting here is a link to a number of useful articles which might be of assistance: http://www.k9events.com/behaviourB.htm#biting

This a really good article on mouthing by Ian Dunbar: http://www.jersey.net/%7Emountaindog/berner1/bitestop.htm

Another good article on puppy mouthing: http://www.clickersolutions.com/articles/spt/SPT_Puppies.htm

Yep great idea to practice having her walk on a lead in the backyard when there are zero distractions. Since you don't really want to reinforce the idea of pulling one thing I recommend when teaching a puppy to LLW (loose lead walking) is to limit situations where the dog is on-lead and likely to be highly distracted. Keep the sessions short. If you want to exercise the pup (since really they should go on long leash walks till they are more developed). Drive to a safe area and attach a long line and just let the dog run around or play ball. Then when the dog is a bit more settled you either pick up the long line and encourage a bit of LLW or you can clip a shorter lead on and again try a bit of LLW. The long line is there so the dog doesn't take off so you can't get them to return.

You can also use the opportunity to work on recalls but start up really close and you can even show the dog the food and lure them away from whatever they were interested in. Never use the long line to drag the dog, unless of course its an absolute life threatening emergency just use it to step on to limit the dogs options.

On the stealing front - you can have two options - work on a come command and then exchange the item for a more doggy appropriate item or secondly teach a Leave it. The best way to teach leave it might seem a bit counter productive but you basically give the world LEAVE and then reward the dog (and I mean with really GOOD stuff - roast chicken, kabana, cheese - high value rewards). The idea being the dog learns that when it hears that word that good things will happen. You can condition COME or whatever you want as your recall word. Basically just say the word and reward the dog. Its the same way you would condition a bridge word or a clicker.

From there you teach the dog that if it looks at you rather than the food you reward it with better food. I am sure they will go into it in more detail at training or if they don't ask or I can write it out in detail.

Anyway hope this helps some.

Ness

Awesome information in your reply Ness!

My children are having honey sandwiches for lunch and I strongly advised them not to give any to Sasha. I don't know why exactly but i'm sure I heard somewhere that it is bad for dogs, as well as pizza.

Is this correct?

We've already had Emma (16wo beagle X) for 2.5 weeks now, and I don't want to go on for too long without doing things "properly". We've called an obedience/training place that sounds good (thanks ness) but they don't have any new groups starting until July 8th... which feels like a long way away. Until then I'm worried that we'll get into bad habits that will be hard to break. Just the normal anxiety of a new "parent" I guess.

I had to wait a week or so for the puppy class at my vet but dogs learn really quick when they're young and consistency is the key (so I've learned). I think someone said it takes a week to break a habit and 21 days to correct it.

One issue at the moment is that she's not toilet trained - there haven't been too many accidents because we watch her, but because we're both out during the day (and leave her outside) she's only had limited time inside to practice. I'm really looking forward to being able to relax more when she's inside, and for her to be able to sleep inside overnight. I hope we'll get there eventually if we're patient.

I'm home 24/7 so my case might be different but it took a while for Sasha to toilet train too. It's a pain but taking puppy out on the hour helps. It's freezing outside so it's hard to wait till she's done what she has to do in order for me to praise her. I also crated her in the laundry for a few nights which seems to have solved it. I have found that keeping Sasha in bed with us with the door closed has now stopped any accidents but if I leave the door open she sometimes leaves the bedroom to do her business during the night....yeah nice breakfast surprise for me the next day NOT lol.

Also, she gets in a biting/mouthing mood sometimes, and seems to prefer biting/chewing us to anything else (not that we let her bite us). Sometimes out the back she starts attacking my pants/jacket (while I'm standing up) and it can be really hard to get her off. Pushing her away makes her more excited, and I can't really completely ignore it because she'll rip my clothes. Ocassionally she's actually nipped me near the knees (and on my wrists when I've been trying to get her off) and it really hurts. It's only happened a few times, but I don't really know how to deal with it when it does.

I have bought a few toys and treats and when she bites I yelp and move away and give her one of her toys or a pigs ear. This has totally stopped the mouthing and nipping now.

We've taken her for two walks around the block on her lead (today and yesterday). She pulled off to the side quite a bit, and at times stopped dead and sat down. We held some dry dog food (which she likes as a reward) to encourage her to move forward, and come back to us, and walk at our sides, but overall it was pretty slow going. I've read things like "never let them pull on the lead"... but I also want her to get used to the idea that by walking on the lead she can see nice places outside. Is it better to train in the backyard first? If so, at what point is she "ready" to go outside?

I was told to start in the backyard first with treats for reward based training and then slowly give the treats less. Everytime she pulled on the lead I would stop and stand still and ask her to sit. She has learned that if she wants to go forward she has to stop pulling on the lead as pulling = having to stop and sit. It's such a painful process for me but it's working really well.

Sometimes she steals things inside, like tissues out of the box, or shoes that are on the ground. What's the best way to get something off her that I don't want her to have?

give her one of her own toys or a pigs ear to chew.

We also have two cats. At the start, Emma kept her distance, but she's gotten more bold lately and will actually (gently) jump on one of our cats in an attempt to play. That cat is really good, and very calm around Emma. She never runs away unless Emma actually makes physical contact, and even then not right away. Hannah (the cat) likes to lie on our bean bag, and will stay lying there for a while even after Emma gets on in and makes playing motions, but she does eventually jump off... at which point Emma chases... Should we be calling Emma away before she gets to the beanbag? We mostly do, but every now and then I have this thought that maybe this time Emma will be calmer, and maybe even lie down and go to sleep next to Hannah. It's not like she runs to the beanbag or anything, but she gets more and more excited trying to get Hannah to play.

I do time out when this happens. If Sasha chases Annalease she gets time out in the backyard. I clap hands as well when she does something naughty so she knows to stop if I say 'HEY" and clap my hands.

Sorry for all the questions. If anyone has any advice about anything, I'm listening.

I'm by no means a dog trainer but I've learnt through puppy class and blieve it or not, The Dog Whisperer on Foxtels Animal Planet channel. You can always ask your vet as well as I've rung them a few times in the past with questions.

Hope this helps

I'm confused. Did you not write "Any ideas on training a JRT? So far he still bites/snaps/snatches when I'm trying to train him to sit for a treat (he's approximately 12wks). Am I starting to train too young?

Thanks for any advice"

As far as I can tell we responded accordingly (with the one exception).

I wish you all the best with the JRT, they're a joy :-)

Well I was leaving the option open for any advice.

Toby now sits when asked and does not snatch the treats. He's a model student. I am just guilty of not persisting first but to jump online and ask the lovely people on DOL to give me some ideas in case something else might work to what I was doing. Next time I'll spell it out better.

I hope what I said didn't come across so drastic. It's not a huge problem and isn't constant. It's only now and again and is something I just wanted some outside the box tips on to further training.

My GSD no longer chases the cat, she's learnt to ignore her and now they sit on the couch and sleep on the bed together. Now the dog walks past her and she puts out a paw and has a playful nip at the dog instead.

As for the JRT pup, she just wants to play with the cat and when I growl at her she stops straight away.

I love that you guys are so passionate but phew, sometimes I read some opinions and it's difficult to take it objectionally.

Not that I need to justify myself but please note that I am home all the time and have the time and patience to teach the rules. My GSD and I have done puppy school and are now going to start at Castle Hill on Monday nights to further her education. As for the other pup, she and I will go to puppy school and off to Castle Hill just as soon as she's ready.

Thanks for the vote of confidence, Jill but I'm investing my time and money into this 100% and am seeing the results every day. No new addition to the family is without teething problems and to be hung, drawn and quartered for asking advice on how to assist in ironing out the creases is not what I need.

I have a 15mo jack called Mitchi.

Have had her from 8 weeks and we also have 2 cats. I have other dogs too.

Mitchi tried the cat chasing, my cats turn adn fight. 2 do 1 runs. The 2 who stand up for themselves taught Mitch not to chase. She backed down very quickly. We reinforced the cats status by growling at Mitch when she did chase them.

She was sinbinned a fair bit.

My cats are inside cats so there is no chance of her chasing them outise. ALthough if they do get out on the odd occasion Mitch, Barker and Hunta just want to say hi and give them a kiss.

I am not sure beside, growling and sinbinning what else you can do, other than putting you jack on a lead and treating her with food treats when she is nice to the cats. Start at the basics again and work forwards.

The snatching food out of my hands se did once.

Was told off firmly adn has NEVER done it again. I removed the food from reach when she went to snatch, growled LOUDLY and said gentle.

I kept repeating it until she was taking nicely. Now i just say gentle to remind her sometimes but she is pretty good.

My only other couple of reccomendations are:

*DO NOT have her/him sleep on the bed until he has learnt his place in the pack. ie BELOW you. We are having a couple of issues now that we wouldn;t have had if she had not been able to sleep in bed with us form a young age.

*Crate Train, we did from day 1. Can;t reccomend it enough

*Be consistent ALL THE TIME. DoNT let them get away with anything. Habits are too hard to break.

Good luck

Uh oh, he's been sleeping in bed since he came to live with me. He was supposed to be my daughters dog but he's followed me around and sat at my feet or more so on my lap and slept next to my head in bed every day/night since I brought him home. Little guy has me wrapped around his paw now.

I gave my crate away when I stopped fostering and only have the laundry which is where my GSD has decided she wants to sleep tonight. I can't bear the cries from this little guy when he's locked away and I think it's due to separation anxiety and from what AWL told me, he sees me as his mum and wants to be as close to me as possible.

Currently he's snuggled up around my feet as I type. He's supposed to be sleeping in with my daughter but he cries at the door to be with me. Hmmm...what to do

there is ALOT to be said for pigs ears...I'm finding these, Smackos, and devon cut up into tiny peices to be a godsend in the training department.

My 4.5mth old GSD has now stopped chasing my cat which is awesome however my new eddition to the family, my JRT x has taken up the chasing game. I admit my cat is partly to blame because I'm sure she enjoys the chase but it worries me incase one gets hurt.

Any ideas on training a JRT? So far he still bites/snaps/snatches when I'm trying to train him to sit for a treat (he's approximately 12wks). Am I starting to train too young?

Thanks for any advice