1. He needs to be walked with intermittent training (5 minutes Fun training/15 minutes walking/ 5 minutes training/ 15 minutes walking). 2. You need to teach him what is called "bite inhibition." He needs to be consistently corrected from mouthing in the way his mother and siblings would correct him: YELP loud when he mouths (even if it is not hurting). Stop playing with him or interacting with him at all (as trianglejohn describes) if he mouths. Ignore bad behavior and only interact/pet/play if he is appropriate. 3. Do not blame the dog for his lack of training. Did you research the breed before you bought him? Aussies are spirited, high energy dogs. This is a very labor intensive breed on the owner's part. I have friends with Aussies in agility and they need to run/work the dog intensively an hour a day, minimum. 4. Forget about your "dominating" the dog. Since you are home all day, it should be easy to sign up for a puppy kindergarten training class, which will teach you how to train him. 5. Reading and trying to apply what Cesar Milan does (without learning basic methods of dog training yourself) is like reading or watching someone drive a race car and then getting behind the wheel yourself. His methods in particular are not appropriate for puppies or for people who have no idea how to train a dog. Ian Dunbar is a world renowned dog trainer, behaviorist and vet. If you plan to read anything, I recommend his web site. Good luck. Here is a link that might be useful: Ian Dunbar

You have no choice but to get out there and clean up the yard of weeds, ivy, and other plant debris. Hire help, if you need to. Is there a body of water nearby, not in your yard? I had to have a chat with my neighbor who was leaving a baby pool outside for the dog, but never emptying it....just adding more water occasionally. Mosquitoes can breed in a very small amount of water, like the cupped leaves of ivy. I know that from experience. I had to quit in the middle of a consultation visit, which included a walkthrough of the property for a plant inventory and detailed measurements of the property and proposed design locations. It became impossible to work after about ten minutes and I called it quits. The clients called me back after they had accomplished a major yard clean-up and I was able to get back to work.

My answer for this is also no. Are you looking for reassurance that it's okay to take a trip or a reason (an excuse) why it's not? Millions (it's really tens of millions) of people fly every day and visit major tourist locations outside the US. Let's assume there will be two terrorist incidents in the next few months, which there won't be. You'll be safer in an airplane and visiting overseas locations than you would be driving in your car near your home and/or spending time in any US city, because US crime rates are very significantly higher than foreign ones (in industrialized countries). The US has had more deaths from terrorist incidents in the last 25 years than any developed country in the world. If you want to be safest, it's best to leave here.

I don't know that you should plant any oaks back here (maybe it was just part of the analogy) but I do agree that it would be best to go with smaller plants. They will be easier to care for and do better in the long run. What are you looking for in a flowering tree? You could pick up a few more 'Best Red' crepe myrtles, limb up & thin them like shown and plant a row to be against the fence. You could do other Black diamond colors and have an alternating row of red & white or red & pink. You could also keep the one CM, do the island bed, and plant other small ornamental trees like kousa dogwood and japanese maple.