My breeder swears buy the white pine collars. They are super soft. I have one for Malu. They have a "no slip" design thats very similar to a martingale but I think I like it better.

http://www.whitepineoutfitters.com/

I got Malu an earth dog hemp collar a while back. I took it off of him and left it on the table. When I came home later he had eaten almost the entire collar less the metal parts. He's usually not one to eat things that he tears up but i guess the hemp tasted good. No more hemp collars for him.

Over the last week or so, Malu (who just turned 1yr old), is shedding like crazy. The weather started to get cold here in northern VT, maybe that has something to do with it? I just used a lint roller to clean my couch, and after him sitting down for less than a min it looks like this.

Hello,

So here is how my schedule works,

I take Malu out for a 20-30 min walk at 6am every morning. On his walk he poops and urintates and additionally marks a few trees along the way. I feed him when we get back and then I leave for work at around 7:15 and put him in his crate. I return between noon and 1pm to let him out. We walk for 5-10 minutes. Sometimes he pee's, sometimes he doesn't. I get home between 4:30-5:30. We go for our afternoon walk for 25-35 mins. Sometimes I replace it with an off-leash run through the woods or a trip to the dog park. He again poops and pees and marks, etc… I spend the rest of the evening at home most nights. I take him out for a quick 5-10 minutes but he rarely goes to the bathroom. Often times, this results in him only relieving himself those two times. Is this okay? He doesn't seem to display any discomfort and the vet said he looked to be in great health when he went in to get neutered 2 weeks ago.

Does any one else's dog only go twice a day? I know that I go a lot more than that!!

Thanks

Ivoss,

I think you are probably right. I guess "Submissive" wasn't the right word. The golden lays down in the way that a dog would lay down if commanded to. It still looks very alert. Its not like a submissive lay down and roll onto its side like that I would generally expect when a dog was being submissive. Coincidentally, Malu used to exhibit similar behavior when larger dogs would be walking towards us on our walks. He would "lay down" about 10 yards before the dog got there only to stand up and walk up to the dog quickly when it got close. I have since stopped him from doing this because i thought other dogs might find it to be aggressive. He has met at least 1/2 a dozen dogs since the incident and hasn't done anything strange.

I think it may have beem Malu trying to assert himself as the top dog with the other pup. As far as recall goes, its a work in progress. I don't let him off the leash unless we are signifigantly isolated from the road. I think the extremly submissive behavior of the other dog added to the situation. As soon as the dog sees Malu it lays down and kind of cowers.

Hello,

Malu is about 9-1/2 months now and he is exhibiting agression towards a specific dog. Here is the backstory.

My My mother and I walk malu and the 7 year old family springer spaniel to the local bike path/recreation fields. Once into the open area and away from the road many of the dog walkers let their dogs off leash to run and play. Malu has had a great time and behaved well with other dogs when we let him off. On two seperate occasions we have run into a golden retreiver puppy (8-12 month old) when walking to the park area (on leash). On both occasions the golden will lay down and stop in its tracks ( I have no idea why). Malu for some reason gets very agressive and will pull towards the dog and growl and show teeth. I have never seen him do this to any other dog or in any other scenerio.

Today, while i was away at work, my mother decided to take Malu down to the park with her. She let the dogs off and my mom wasn't aware that the women and the golden had entered the park area. Malu noticed the dog and ran over "attacked it". I am not sure in what manner he attacked the other dog but a friend of my mother was able to seperate the dogs very easily. His comment to her was that he thought if he was really trying to hurt the dog that he would have probably gotten bit when he stuck his hand in there to seperate him. No harm was done to the other dog but the owner was quite upset.

Any idea what could be causing this behavior? It seems like he may be trying to assert his dominace with a younger dog. Hehas an appointment next thursday to be neutered, maybe this will help. I am mostly dissapointed that I can no longer trust him off leash with other dogs.

Thank you for any advice,

The puppy trainer that I did Malu's last session with said that the jingling tags can irritate the dogs and cause some dogs to become neurotic. He then pulled out a large cow bell on a necklace and said anyone who showed up to class next week with jingling tags would have to wear the cowbell. I never really thought about how annoying it might be to have something jingling near your head every time you moved. I used a small hair band and banded malu's collars together for now. I will probably purchase a pocket or tag silencers soon.

@nobarkus:

They are good collars and I have gotten a leash replacement but the nylon irritates Buddy's neck. Right now he's wearing a hemp collar which seems to be better. I just ordered a collar from 2 Hounds that's lined with cuddle satin.

I had Malu in an "earth dog" hemp martingale. One day I removed the collar I accidentally left it within his reach. Turns out that he must like hemp because he ate eveything but the D rings. Usually he'll just chew on/tear up things but with the Hemp he actually ingested it. Luckily, it worked its way out.

I always buy Lupine because Malu has a tendency to like to chew on his leads and collars. They replace everything for free even if chewed. If you find a local store that sells them you can just walk in and exchange. They're clip is more like a Carabiner so its much easier to operate and it doesn't get jammed up with sand and dirt.

http://lupinepet.com/

@Basenjimamma:

He is adorable..I bet he loved it…

As far as the sandals...Chaco's ROCK..I could so walk the face of the earth twice around in mine....well that was until Pippin just chewed the straps off...Otis did it before him so off to Chaco's the go for replacement straps....again!

They are suedo hiking sandals with vibram soles, totally ergonomic to your sole and so adjustable, they fit like a glove.

I'm a little over 2.5 years into my chaco's and I love them! I wear them everywhere I can. I think I'll need to send them out to Re-Chacco this winter though. Get them resoled and some new straps. I can't say enough good things about those sandals. Unfortunately, they moved all their production to China after I bought that pair, at least if I send them out for repair it will stay here in the states.

Just thought I'd share a quick picture of Malu Hiking with me over the 4th of July Weekend. It was a 2.5 mile hike (both ways) up some rocky terrain up to the summit (about 4100' above sea level). He had a great time and navigated the terrain much better than me!

I just started running with my pup Malu. He's about 5.5 months. I'm really out of shape so we are out for about 20-25 mins that includes occasional breaks to walk. I really would have to push myself to have him anywhere near a full run, as mentioned above, its more of a trot for him if I am jogging at a moderate pace.

As long as you are paying attention to the pup, you should be fine. If he decides he doesn't want to run anymore, stop and walk (that's what we do). When he has play dates with some of his friends he is moving much faster than our dogjog pace for longer periods of time. I can't see jogging with a pup that harmful as long as you aren't forcing the issue.

I would strongly suggest you don't use a laser pen with your dog. My parents did that with their dog (a springer spaniel) and now he chases anything light or shadow that darts across the floor, yard, any surface really. Maybe its a coincidence, but I have heard of other dogs developing light/shadow chasing issues from laser pens.

Adorable. My pup is also from Kyle. I was very curious to see how these guys would turn out. He looks great!

Honestly, I see a little pit in her with the shape of her face and the position of her ears.

If you are interested in Toys, I would highly recommended a Papillon. They are extremely intelligent and easily trained. They are also quite athletic/agile for a toy breed. They do well in agility and I've even seen some large Paps in flyball. My pap was never super "yippy" but I have met a few who are. They are in the toy group but are from the spaniel family.

Malu and I were sitting on the porch yesterday to watch the passing thunderstorm. Malu decided to jump up on the window sill for a closer look.

My girlfriend thinks I accidentally purchased a cat.

Love that picture of Gunner's Face. It looks like he is smiling!

Are they looking for people to help transport animals? I am not that far away (rochester, NY) and could help with transporting dogs from Cicero west towards Rochester/Buffalo/Erie, if needed. I also have a petsitter friend that does a lot of transporting for other organizations so she would probably help too.

that calculator says Malu will be about 29lbs, which is still pretty big. I was hoping he would be a little larger anyway, most of my friends have larger dogs, labs mixes and hound mixes. So he should have no problem "hanging with the big dogs".

I was browsing through that book a little more. It actually has some pretty interesting data on different experiments they did with the 5 different breeds. Its kind of neat to see how the Basenji's compared to some of the other breeds.