Lawgirl

8 hours ago, Journey said:

Isn't that amazing! I wonder how he finished..

I have had a look at the results - he did not have a good second round and ended up 22nd.  There was a tie for first.  This was in the Open section.

Results page here for interest https://nationalsheepdogtrials.org.au/results/

The Australian National Sheepdog Trials are currently being held, and I found this interesting article.  The dog is 13 years old, and the handler is 88 years old and in a mobility scooter.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-20/national-sheep-dog-trial-championship-canberra/100920652

Oh it is so easy to get caught up in the cute puppy photos!  It sounds like you are making the best decision for you and your family, which is important.

The right dog will come along.

I can only share my experience.  We bought two puppies within a few days of each other, littermate Border Collies.  I made sure to work with them separately when training and one became my agility dog, the other bonded more closely with my OH, who is home all day.

When they were about 18 months old, we saw an advert for a 20 week old red merle BC puppy give away in our home town.  We took him in, and he fit in almost immediately and became a shadow to one of our first two dogs.

Then several years later we had the opportunity to take another BC who was not quite one year old.  This dog turned out to be the most gentle and loving dog I have ever known, and he fit in with the others beautifully.

Then we lost one of our original two dogs to sepsis at seven years old, very suddenly.  A couple of months later, we adopted a not quite two year old BC who is quite high energy, but he has also fit in really well and seems to be keeping the others young. 

I think having four neutered male dogs at a time has been relatively difficulty free.  I am a strong believer in having more than one BC at a time, because I think they keep each other occupied when you may be away or busy.

I have heard that having more than one female can be difficult due to conflict between them.  Is the puppy you are thinking of male or female?

I am by no means an expert, but with a more sensitive dog, I would think that you need to modify your actions to the minimum required to get the result that you want.  If banging on the ground is too harsh, then use pressure other ways.  I am not at all clear what that may be, but may just be extending the stick to block the direction you don't want him to go.  This will probably take a bit of experimentation.

So I have binged the four episodes of Muster Dogs.  I enjoyed it a lot.  It was described as an experiment to see if it was possible to bring a well bred dog on faster than the three years generally accepted to be needed to train a stock dog.

The pups went to their new owners at 3 months, and then had assessments with specific goals at 4 months, 6 months, 9 months and 12 months.  I was surprised at how local to me a lot was, with the breeder, the head trainer couple and one of the participants all living within two hours or so of me.

The pups mostly went on an epic road trip to reach their homes, with the longest being 7,000km (4,350 miles).

The early goals were things like bond with owner, communal feeding, recognising their name, dragging a long lead, loose lead walking.

The halfway point included holding stock on the fence, bringing stock to the handler, off lead walking and jumping onto bike or buggy.

Nine months was resisting distraction, having a stop, sit and hold on stock, work stock to the sides and do a 50m cast.

The final test was to go into a paddock, bring a mob of cattle to the handler and through a gate, and then to bring the stock back through the gate but hold them near the gate to stop them running off.

Four of the handlers ran cattle, one ran sheep.  Two of the handlers also had packs with border collies, the other three seemed to only have kelpies.

There was drought and then the drought breaking, there were snakes, injury and many many cute and funny puppy moments.  There was a sad moment at the end.  There was lots of reflection on why people were using dogs instead of other methods, and how it was a question of animal welfare for the stock and also better for the land.

All the dogs completed the assessments with varying levels of success.  The black and tan bitch that won was amazing to watch - she glided around the stock, very calmly but with authority.  She and her handler were incredibly in tune with each other.

I don't know much about stock work, but this was really enjoyable.

I found this ABC article which has a trailer for Muster Dogs at the top when I view it. Hopefully others can see it too.

https://amp-abc-net-au.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/amp.abc.net.au/article/100761400?amp_js_v=a6&amp_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQKKAFQArABIIACAw%3D%3D#aoh=16425007261400&csi=1&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From %1%24s&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.abc.net.au%2Fnews%2F2022-01-18%2Fsheepdog-training-helping-bored-working-dogs-living-in-cities%2F100761400

I swear that my Oscar was the spitting image of Dog

Footrot Flats is still so much fun, and I love the movie, even if the theme song is a complete earworm

I am somewhat resurrecting this thread, as I have just seen an advert for a new series being produced by the Australian ABC, called Muster Dogs.  The premise of the show is that five Kelpie puppies are given to five graziers from various parts of the outback, and the show follows them over a year as they train these pups up to compete against each other as "champion muster dogs".  I am not exactly sure what they mean by muster dogs, but it sounds like a great excuse to see cute puppies and stockwork training, based on the trailer.

I guess my Sunday evenings from 23 January 2022 are sorted for a while. Or I may just catch up on watch on demand and binge.  Wish they were BCs, but maybe if it is a success other countries may pick up the format and use BCs? 

Not sure if anyone who is not in Australia will be able to watch, unless you have a VPN.  Just in case you can, here is the link to the page https://iview.abc.net.au/show/muster-dogs

And for video of a Kelpie dog working stock, there are some links to Facebook videos in a previous post of mine about a world record price for a Kelpie in 2021.

What a beautiful story.

Damn onions, making my eyes water...

The only advice I can give is to get him into the vet as soon as they open.  In the meantime, keep a close eye on him so you can accurately describe his symptoms to the vet when you can get in.  Maybe write them down, so you don't forget anything in the stress of the appointment.

In the time it took me to register and confirm my vote, the count went from 3999 to 4132.  Fingers crossed this goes well!

Voted and confirmed

So sorry for your loss Geonni.  They are never with us for long enough.

Also, out of the four dogs that we have castrated in our time, George was the only one who suffered any side effects of the procedure, but that was moderate to severe pyoderm, or razor burn.  We were prescribed a steroid cream to apply twice a day, and some tablets for the itch/irritation.  Normally they would prescribe oral steroids, but he was on a NSAID pain relief, and he could not have that and oral steroids.

This was completely unexpected, and meant the cone stayed on until all the stitches came out and the rash had healed enough.

I guess he is just a sensitive soul!

To be honest, there was no suggested regime of checking up beyond whenever he had to come in yearly for vaccinations, and if he came in for any other reason they would just check as part of the examination.  George has been having issues with his anal glands not expressing properly, so we have probably had him in maybe three times in the last 18 months, and his prostate was pretty much unchanged from "slightly enlarged" until the last time, but as he was getting older, the risks increase, as do the risks of anaesthesia, so we decided the time was right.

I think they have probably been gently encouraging us to consider castration since 2018.  But they also recommended keeping an eye on him when he pees, to see if he strained or has intermittent flow, which might be symptoms of a worsening prostate.

I have just castrated my 9 year old dog George.  The vets have been checking his prostate gland every checkup for several years, and suggesting that we may want to castrate him as his prostate was slightly enlarged, but as it was only a slight enlargement, and not painful we had not done anything.  But recently George had infected anal glands, which had to be treated under anaesthetic due to the pain, and when they checked his prostate gland it was big enough that they more strongly recommended castration.  Since we want him around for a lot longer, we agreed.  His stitches came out a couple of days ago. 

Our other three dogs are all castrated, two of them while in our house, and I have never felt that they have significantly changed in behaviour.  Our youngest dog was a rescue and was castrated well after his second birthday.  He is pretty much the same in disposition and behaviour.  It is possible that he has calmed down a little since being castrated, but he is still bouncy and full of energy. 

We do keep a fairly close eye on our dogs weight, and adjust food amounts accordingly.

Four current BC boys, varying degrees of velcro-ness.  The oldest is more velcro to my SO than to me, but they have such a bond it is amazing.  I.E., if my SO is at his desk, the dog will be under the desk, but much of the time he just will go off and lie wherever he wants.  Our house is not so large he does not know where we are.

Second oldest is not a close velcro, but he will always know where you are, and is always watching.  You move, he moves, but he may be watching from the doorway, or from the doorway down the passage.  Exception is when we are exercising the dogs, and I have a treat bag.  Then he spends a huge amount of time heeling nicely and doing puppy dog eyes for treats.  On the other hand, he is the dog who is equally focussed on what the other dogs are doing.

Third dog is a cuddle bug.  You sit down, he wants to cuddle and get love, but if you get up and he is comfortable, he will wait for you to come back.  He does love to hold your hand.

Youngest dog is a velcro dog.  I cannot go to the bathroom without him wanting to join me.  If I move in the night, he jumps up and wants attention.  He pesters for attention when I get home, sit at the table or desk etc.  If I get up and move, he is with me.

She is a very talented lady called Janet Bird, and she is the wife of someone I know through agility.  She does a lot of portraits of dogs for her friends and contacts.

I was only charged AU$150 (about 110USD or 80 pounds) for each portrait, which I think was super cheap for a handmade, personalised portrait.  The framing actually cost more!

I adore them, and they are hung either side of our bed head.

My George is 9 years old now, and he is much the same.  He has always been one to sleep most of the day, but take him out and he is puppy-like as ever, and still seems to have the same energy levels, although he is starting to go a little silver around the face.

I doubt I need to repeat the vet test vote, but I join with all the others.

It has now been two years since Oscar passed away, and it still catches me at times.  I still sometimes have dreams that Oscar is bouncing up to the front door, with his goofy grin on his face.

I commissioned a local artist to do some portraits of Oscar and his brother George, which she did in pastels.  I think they turned out amazingly well, and I feel she really captured Oscar's spirit, considering she had never met him.

Hi everyone!

I thought there may be a few people interested in a competition that is held in Australia (and this year including New Zealand for the first time).

Working dogs are nominated, and then the selected competitors wear a GPS tracker for the period from 16 August to 5 September and leader board points are awarded for a combination of distance, working duration and speed.

There are New Zealand Heading Dogs, Kelpies and Border Collies in the running this year, and currently the number three dog as I write is an ee red (aka Aussie Red, Gold or Wheaten) Border Collie from Queensland.

The competition is held each year, and is called the Cobber Challenge (with Cobber being a dog food brand).

You can find the competition, for anyone interested, at www.cobberchallenge.com.au

11 hours ago, albuquerquedan said:

That's a great looking dog, by the way.  I love the friendly, enthusiastic look in his (her?) eyes.  Getting meaningful eye contact like that is one of the reasons we love dogs so much, I suppose.

That is my boy Buddy.  He was a rescue at just under two years old; his previous owners had been about to put him down because they could not control him before the rescue got him.  I got the impression he had been shut up in a yard all day every day.

He is an attention seeker, and still has remnants of his habit of jumping and air snapping (enough that one of his nicknames is Budzilla) and he barks at cars, but he is just an energetic BC who needed a pack to play and wrestle with and a family to make him part of their everyday lives.

And he does happy expectant puppy dog eyes like no one's business.

I am in an office with another practitioner, so no doggies at work, unfortunately.  However, I have had to work from home a little, and found that no dogs at work may be a good thing when you have a dog doing this.

I have managed to get fully vaccinated with Pfizer in Australia, which has a chronic shortage of vaccines due to our government betting on A-Z and then having to limit its use to over 60s due to rare blood clots, but we are apparently due to have Moderna approved any day now, and have a supply coming, which is really happily anticipated.

There is a big problem here with vaccine supply in a country which traditionally has 95%+ vaccination rates as a nation.  Lots of emphasis in the news about vaccine hesitancy, but we would be more vaccinated if there was a supply...

I have heard a lot about hesitancy in the USA; I am hoping things resolve for you.