Peppie is a rat terrier, which is actually a mixture of five or six other breeds, and I must say that some of the doggies posted after mine look very similar to him. We have another dog, a Yorkie, and unfortunately Peppie has never really warmed up to her, although he adored our Main Coone cat, a gentle giant who persisted in trying to befriend Peppie, despite many rebuffs, until Peppie fell in love with him. I love hearing all about the foibles of your dogs, and their interactions with their people and other pets. Florence, there's no question you had to marry Bob for Charlie's sake. No sacrifice is too great for our beloved pets! Ingrid

Wow, so many roses to transport too, Karen! Keeping my fingers crossed all will be smooth moving for you. As soon as I got your email I let Jim know you had written on your thread! I was going to write, but the scary truth is that I woke up at 4:33 p.m. (am battling this terrible chest cough, sore throat and meds have been knocking me out) and then saw your email. Then I had to do rush emergency planting right before the thunderstorm hit (just received roses from Palatine yesterday) and I needed to get everything into the ground before the storm. Well all that labor caused me to get sick again around 8:50 p.m. which is why I didn't write back yet... But I'm real happy that Jim has helped write for me, lol! Karen, I just don't see how you can do all this hard work! I had to throw up my hands and give up many a time....My soil in unbroken new ground is as hard as a rock and basically needs a jackhammer it seems...I just can't get my shovel into that rock hard clay. It's been soooo frustrating...And Australia just seems very desertlike, and it would take great strength to dig into that soil I'm thinking..... I am so glad Ray had real good foresight on providing for you and the girls when he knew he had cancer; and that you could purchase the Tasmania property. With this place that you can take time to develop while you maintain your current home. Be sure to update us on your progress. Smiles and hugs, Serena

I thought I should inject a word about my own credentials. Over the past 50 years I have trained 7 dogs (4 collies, 2 shelties, and one mixed breed rescue dog) and 4 equines (2 horses and 2 ponies). My first two collies came to me as one year old dogs and the latter two were puppies. Both my shelties were pups and my older mixed breed was a formerly abused biter with serious trust problems when they came to me. Two of my horses and one pony were what I would call "green broke" and the other pony was an untrained 3 yr old that I took on to train & rehome to save her from the meat buyers, but who ended up staying with me until her death at age 36. My first collie was a rescue of sorts, having lived the first year of his life at the end of a chain. I trained him with methods available at that time. He embraced the task of getting out of the road when a car approached, and he would have been sadly disappointed had he learned that the only point of this task was to protect himself from injury. He would scurry over to the side of the road and look at us with self-satisfaction, as if to say "There I found a car for you! Didn't I do good!?" I trained him using old school methods, and I lament not having access to reward based training methods at the time, as it would have made him an even more exceptional dog than he was. That is not to say he wasn't lavished with praise and love, just that old style dominence methods were employed. Still he had a great quality of life and walked hundreds of miles on hikes and horseback rides. But it always eats at me that I did not have the tools available that are at my disposal today. My last collie that I trained with positive reinforcement methods passed his canine good citizen test with flying colors and earned a backpacking title from the American Working Collie Assoc, carrying a pack for a dozen miles, and another 12 miles on his way to winning another title from a different organization. I schooled my horses in basic dressage, simple reining exercises, elementary jumping, barrel racing, as well as training my mare and both ponies to pull a cart. None of them even knew something as basic as how to back up when they came to me. My sister and I conditioned our horses for a number of 25 - 35 mile competitive trail rides and placed well. I placed 3rd (actually first place, except that there was also a champion and reserve champion ahead of her) in a competitve trail drive at Green Mountain Horse Assoc. with my small pony as well. This was quite an accomplishment for a small Shetland pony competing against a field of Arabians and Morgans. My Morgan X mare and I were often in the money/ribbons every week at local rodeos and gymkhanas. As far as horse training mentors, I took my advice from articles and books written by those who wrote about "developing a rapport with one's horse" and under the tutelage of similar minded equestrian instructors, both Western and English. It is not necessary to engage in some sort of macho peeing contest with one's dog to teach him desirable vs undesirable behaviors, nor with horses. As far as horses, my favorite words of advice on the subject comes from a trainer I respected highly, a man with great expertise in training "problem horses," Dave Jones. He wrote this: "When you are starting to lose your temper with your horse, picture this: imagine that your gentle riding horse is the meanest, mankillingest son-of-a-*** under the sun. Would you lose your temper with this horse? Heck no! He'd stomp you to death!" Mr Jones' sense of humor was one of his endearing qualities, but the message behind his words spoke volumes. I developed a lasting rapport with all my horses. The proof of their trust in me was evident when my mare was willing to cross a narrow bridge that no sane horse would cross because I told her it was OK, or when I had to perform a veterinary procedure on one of them, or if I told them it was OK to allow a vet to do the same. I never betrayed their trust in me and I could trust them all implicitly. I cared for them all their lives into old age and they rewarded me with a love that is still with me now that they are gone. (It had nothing to do with the obvious fact that the human with the grain can was in charge, aka alpha.) That is the definition of rapport.

We had a wonderful mutt we named Woodstock Nation. When a kitten adopted us, our 4 yo dtr named her Dorothy. I have no idea why. We had her for many years. The most beautiful cat we ever had was very tiny with the longest, softest, all black fur you can imagine. Her name was Malificent Underwood. Beautiful as she was, she didn't like to be bothered with any one but our baby boy. (We got them at the same time.) As soon as could walk he carried that cat around all day long, and she slept with him. We called her Cat. I love this old happy thread.