Hi Everyone!
Wow! what a response! I'm now thinking Crate or Not? It VERY reasuring that so many of you have Happy households with a Cat/Dog situation.
I hadn't even heard of crates until december, when we reserved Oliver (who is Golden),
I then went out to Smiths and bought Dr Fogals Book on A-Z of Dogs, This is when I discovered the "crate" If we do use one it will only be for the first few weeks.
Its like "traing" I thought we would be able to to do that by ourselves aswell! But the book recommends Training class's.
Also I was told "its a "must" training class's or your dog will take over your lives - Well in a way thats why I want a dog , I want it to be a big part of our life.
I feel very resured to know if I have a question when Oliver arrives & I 'm sure I will! I can come back to this site. Its really fantastic!
I have one question ,when I take him out to the garden , is it OK if I use a long loose lead, we have a fair size garden, I'm a lttle scared He won't come back , I would go with him but even so. How fast can they move at 8 weeks?
With my thanks,
Annie

Hi.
Depending on the layout of your garden, I would section part of it off for the dog. My Garden has a 4ft Weld mesh fence accross the width, so that the dogs have the first 25 feet of the garden. this means the rest of the garden is poop free, and cleaning up after them is much easier, as they use one part of their alloted run. when you can supervise then you can let them have access at other times to the rtest of the garden. this system for me has meant that when my kids were younger and their friends cam to visit, they would go play in the back without risk of bringing in anything on their shoes. A big bomus also I now realise is that the dogs never learn to join in the games the kids play, so no risk of things getting out of hand, or someones child going home saying they had been bitten by a mouthing excited pup!

My next door neighbours when they lost their old russell, got two, puppies, and were tearing their hair out with them running wild in the garden, finding it great fun to be chased, also they wer wrecking their nice borders.

They have a patio with low walls either side made up of brick borders. I suggested they bought a roll of heavy gage weldmesth, some battens and fence posts. the husband made up some 4 ft fence panels from the Battens and wire, put in some posts and an ornamental gate, and has fenced in the patio. Because it is mesh it doesn't spoil the view!! Also they don't get muddy feet. Now the girls are older, in the summer, or when he is gardening the gate is left open for them to wander at will, but at other times they are confined to patio.

Hi Annie,

The Visitor's Question Forum was introduced to allow first time visitors to Champdogs to ask a question, without having to register. The forum was not intended to be used for repeat postings and they are normally removed :-)

If you would like to join us, and I hope that you will, then you can use the following link to Register. This way you will be able to add to any thread that you start,rather than having to start a new one if you have a question.

Thank you for your understanding on this matter.

Leigh