Dog Toys

Making sure that Buddy had his own toys was a good idea. He has a little collection of about 6 things and we rotate which ones we leave out for him. Usually on any given day 5 toys will be lost under the couch. We also gave him a decoy shoe, an old sandal that belonged to the kids. But he prefers recently worn shoes, and can often be found asleep with his head inside an ugg boot.

We are encouraging the kids to play with toys with the dog, rather than play wrestling games, which can give dogs the wrong idea about acceptable ways of interacting with humans.

Buddy loves playing fetch, and will fetch a ball, his toy fire hydrant or his toy shoe. He is a very intelligent dog and learned to fetch and return in about 5 minutes! He also loves Mr Squeaky, and will sleep on his or play tug-of-war with him.

Training : "Settle Buddy, Settle"

At dog training we were told that it is good to have a word that you use to calm your dog down when they are getting a bit carried away or if they get upset.

Some people use the word "gentle" but we say "settle". You can train your dog every time you stroke him. We use long gentle strokes and say in a calm voice "settle Buddy settle".

Designer dogs - are they good value?

Designer dogs aren't free but a good dog breeder puts in lots of hard work long before you adopt your puppy. It is important to find out from the breeder what your pup's parents are like and also how your puppy will be raised in the 8 weeks before you adopt him or her.

As you can see from the photo, Annie and her family also handled the pups a lot, so they were able to get used to people from birth.

We think that Annie's dogs are excellent value, especially considering how much time and care she takes with them. Some designer dogs can sell for up to $3000 - according to a recent SMH article!

Where's my mum?

He looks a bit lost without his mum and littermates around him. This photo is taken about 2 weeks before Buddy came to live with us.

At this stage we were preparing ourselves by reading lots of info about dogs. We found a great book at the school jumble sale (for only $2) called "The Perfect Puppy: How to Raise a Problem-Free Dog". The author is Gwen Bailey, a very well known dog trainer, who has lots of great on-line articles about dog behavior and socialization, including "Ingredients for the Perfect Puppy".

(our puppy is already perfect - just look as his little face!)