bk_blue

OK I agree with you there. It seems to me that the people who advertise the most are the evil puppy farmers and BYBs. :evil: Not a week passes where there's not an ad for "xxx puppies" "xyz pets" etc. Responsible breeders could be doing themselves a favour by raising their profiles and I suppose in some ways dismantling the elitist tag a lot of them seem to have. BUT then if you were looking for a particular breed of dog wouldn't the first thing you'd do would be to contact your local breed club? (but as you said most people don't know about them... still if I was a dog person I would make it my business to know as much about the potential breed as I could and that would mean contacting the club- I guess it's hard to imagine not being educated about dogs, since we've always had them). I also feel that puppies are not a commodity to be traded on the internet, as are any other living creatures. It's not quite the same as looking at houses or cars or makeup on the internet. I just wish that the sites that advertise puppies would realise that, and not allow the hoi polloi to charge a puppy with the Amex without any sort of assessment or checkups on either side. I hate the fact that there are too many unwanted animals around... that is why I will always spay and neuter my pets. Since being involved with this forum I've also pledged to only adopt from shelters and/or breed rescue. I do not have anything against ethical breeders- but I would rather save a life this way than get a puppy who will almost certainly be bought and, in the case of ethical breeders, kept on and not PTS or dumped. I just wish there were more responsible pet owners and breeders around!

Or a Poodle? :roll: :roll:

His breath stinks a little bit, it's not that bad though, much better when he has bones and chewies to gnaw on. He generally doesn't lick people, he saves that for me (when he's grooming himself if my hand or foot gets in the way it gets several luscious sweeps of BK tongue). He's just a big suck, he'll wag his tail and put his ears back and generally look happy, then will ignore whoever it is patting him and look for something more exciting to do. As if he is deigning someone two minutes of his precious time to be fussed over!! :roll: I think it would be interesting to see a Lab with a spiky collar, the only dogs I've seen them on are large mongrels, bull terriers/other bull breeds, GSDs, Rotties, Dobes... I want to get Tomson one, I think it would be hysterical to see a tiny Dachshund take on the world with a badass collar. 8) (to be honest, I think he needs more "keep away I bite" signs than BK, who is 10 times his size)

I suppose that means it's working? :wink:

Welcome DieselChick, nice to see another Aussie on board. 8)

Awww so cute! Gigantic sook, her and bk must be related. :roll: Yeah, people ARE scared of him. It makes me chuckle because he just loves everyone. If someone attacked me though he'd rip their throat out, but generally he just sucks up to everyone he meets, so they think he's lovely and I try to stop myself from gagging. :wink: A lot of the time he gets mistaken for a puppy, must be his boisterous attitude. The only sign that he's middle-aged is his ears, the tips are getting a bit grey. Apart from that he's as active as any young dog. You're in for lots of fun with Miss D, I can tell you now!

Hazel, I take BK for a walk with a plain old collar and lead and people cross the road to avoid him (I know that's why they do because they cross back as soon as we've passed them). :roll: He would look very cute in a spiked collar but he has a very pretty red collar with a bone design on it. :angel: He also wears his little red bandanna (as you can see in my avatar), all the better for grabbing him off other dogs' backs with. :roll: :wink:

Bensam, I thought it would work pretty much the same way with most breed clubs. I picked Weims because I was thinking about getting one a couple of years ago, and I've still got their "puppy pack" in case I want to re-descend into puppy madness. :)

Glad to hear Ben is improving... bk sends a big stinky-breathed heeler kiss to him (you probably don't want it :wink: ) :angel:

You have a point Poofy... but I was under the impression that good breeders do not need to advertise much... the way they do it here is through the affiliated club website eg. Weimaraner Club of Vic. will have lists of litter expected, litters whelped, and studs on their website. If you ring them up wanting to enquire about puppies they send you out an info pack as well. Doesn't seem like you would get that sort of care from that site. :-? The other issue I have is that people are too lazy to do their own research ie. ring breeders, speak to people, visit breeders beforehand and check out their premises, do lots of research- they think the net has all the answers and while it's these people's fault for being lazy and uneducated, these breeder sites have a lot to answer for. :evil: I do not claim to know much about breeding but what I DO know is that there are too many unwanted puppies and dogs in this world, and it seems almost irresponsible to have a site dedicated to the buying and selling of puppies. JMHO.

Have a look at this: [url]www.puppyfind.com[/url] :-?

Correct me if I am wrong but I [b]think[/b] rawhide is bad for most dogs, especially "inhalers" because they don't chew- they suck everything down instead. So the rawhide piece can get stuck in their windpipes or lower down... :-? Dresden cracks me up, fair enough she's a handful and a half but she sounds like a riot! :D

I am from Melbourne Australia. I lived in Sweden for a year when I was younger and also spent some time in the US. We have two dogs- Rinny, a GSD X who is almost 16, and Blitzkrieg, a 71/2 year old blue heeler/border collie cross. I had BK living with me until recently; he destroyed 2 fences and chewed the whole back bit of the house (yes, the weatherboards) and seeing as I rent, it wasn't really a good thing and I had to take him back to my dad's where he is safe and well-adjusted. :( As much as I want him with me, I want him to be happy first. So as you can tell BK is pretty psycho at the age where most dogs are slowing down. He is beautiful though and I wouldn't swap him for anything. He is neutered and microchipped. We do obedience once or twice a week (depending on how busy I am). When he was living with me we would go out every day, but it's a bit harder to do that now seeing as he's not here and it takes about 45 minutes to get to my dad's (dratted public transport). He doesn't play with toys unfortunately so he will not be distracted with them, he prefers to play with other dogs and people rather than "stupid old toys". He is an outside dog at dad's but I turned him into a total wussbag when he was with me, he slept with me in my bed with his head on the pillow. Rinny is beautiful too, he looks very noble in his old age, he inherited all the GSD traits but he's just a tad smaller than the average GSD. He's got a fluffy coat and it's shedding season too- the birds use his hair for their nests. He has arthritis and had a stroke in April 2002, he's deaf, almost blind but he seems happy enough. He got kicked out of obedience as a puppy and didn't "settle down" until he was about 7 (I didn't know him until he was about 8). He is the biggest sook, he will come up to you and lean against you, if you pat him on the head he'll put his paw up and if you take it he'll jump up on you and bury his head in your stomach/side. He loves having his ears scratched and makes this deep groan of pleasure when you do it!

Yay!!! :angel:

they're pretty cute!!! Congratulations :D

Welcome Sheesh- if your puppy is your avatar then she is very cute. :angel: Is she spayed? Maybe that would help? (I only have a male and we all know neutering can assist with dominance/aggression issues in males) Cattledogs are indeed very dominant and forceful and need a strong hand to show them what's acceptable and non-acceptable behaviour. The NILIF (Nothing In Life Is Free) programme ([url]http://www.goof.com/~pmurphy/NILIF.html[/url]) will help you establish that you are alpha and must be obeyed [b]immediately and not when she feels likes it[/b]. Believe me, I still have attention problems with my 7.5yr old cattledog X!!!! He isn't aggressive but just likes to show everyone he is boss by humping every bigger dog in sight that keeps still for more than 5 seconds. :roll: Good luck!

Flea collars stink and when I last had one on BK (he doesn't have them now he's at dad's, they must be left over from the previous tenant's cat :x ) he had a weird reaction to it. :-? Maybe tablets would be a good start, ones that destroy the whole flea cycle. (cannot remember what they are called) Good luck with it, fleas are horrible nasty little things.

Pizzle is the magic wand, wave it and all your troubles will disappear. :lol:

Hi JW and welcome. 8) I think taking on a third dog is a good idea if you can afford the time to spend settling him/her in with the rest of your family, possible training and manners, and the money for food, vaccinations etc. (good on you for going with the rescues btw!!) IME growing up with animals was great and I bet your kids love them too and would love a third addition. As long as you get a dog which suits your lifestyle you'll be sweet. :D Please let us know what you decide!!! :angel:

Ooooh.... I want her.... :(

Thanks Hobbit will pass this onto my dad, fat lot of good it will do but maybe if he reads it he might think twice. No way is BK going on Rimadyl if he gets arthritis later on... over my dead body. :evil:

good news Bensam hoping it all turns out for the best for you and your little angel :angel: Hobbit, now I have heard Rimadyl is bad too, but can you tell me why exactly? In Rinny's case he may be too advanced to do anything about his meds but I might mention it to the "elders" :wink:

It kind of does answer my questions! I know BK is very smart but very hard to train, plus the fact we didn't start doing any formal obedience till last year (he will be 8 in July :oops: ) makes it even harder. And at my obedience club you have to have passed class 4 ie. be able to control your dog off-lead before you can start doing the agility course. I will look up some more info in clickers, and see if I can get my hands on one if it all looks good. :)

[quote name='IlBLisSlI']your dog might just be trying to protect your brother. I know when my brother comes over to my house and we start beating the crap out of eachother my biggest and oldest dog comes to save the day. Could be the same thing for your dog as well.[/quote] Yep, I agree. Kavik may think HIS person is in danger and wants to help out. :angel: Rinny used behave similarly whenever "his" people (stepmum and stepsister) would hug or hold anyone else.

Thanks Nancy, I guess I was talking about how I can get my dog to be 100% reliable with commands in a normal, authoriative voice. I wish I had time to train him that many times a day! I agree, short sessions are much better than one long session, but I don't live with him anymore so I'm not able to zip over to my dad's eight times a day to do training, unfortunately! When I asked you about how long it took you to train your dogs, I was referring to weeks, months... etc. and yeah, how long it takes for them to obey it EVERY time you say it and not when they feel like it. K told me that clickers were very good. Can you explain exactly what one is and what it does ie. how does it get the dog to pay attention...?