Amethyst

I've been doing agility with my dog, and want to get him Kennel Club activity registered so that further down the line we can compete. However, this means coming up with an original name, which is proving extremely difficult...especially as I will need a couple of different options!! Anyone have any ideas please?

He is a crossbreed, Labrador x Golden Retriever (black), called Ozzy, so I was thinking of something relating to the Goldie in him...a name incorporating either Black Gold or Golden Boy are my current choices, however it will need to be longer as I very much doubt those will be available on their own.

Any suggestions much appreciated, I'm sure others will have more imagination than I do!!

This is quite a complicated issue, so please bear with me through the explanation.

Basically, I've had a 2008 Suzuki Swift from new, and had numerous problems. One of the most frustrating ones is a fault which wasn't fixed under warranty as the first garage refused to accept there was a fault (damn intermittent faults) and the second, even though it happened while the car was with them, couldn't identify the problem - their electronic fault finder was plugged in while the problem was occurring, and failed to register anything, no 'fault codes' seem to be stored anyway.

Every so often when starting the car, it will start but instead of coming fully to life it sounds like it's 'coughing and spluttering' (excuse my descriptions, I'm not technical). This will continue for as long as I let it, but will be resolved if I put my foot on the accelerator. I just worry that the fact it occurs at all means something isn't right. It may happen twice in a day, or it may not happen for two weeks - seems totally random. I have however been able to replicate it by bringing the car almost to a stall before dropping the clutch again, the engine will then continue to do its 'spluttering'.

I've recently been having trouble more frequently, but I don't know if the two are connected, or separate faults. Now the engine will often fail to start properly when turning the key, it will keep trying but fail, but then start fine when I try it a second time. The battery may well be dodgy, but would this really be connected, as it's fine when I try a second time? Would expect logically that if the battery was at fault the problem would get worse the more times I tried, though please correct me if I'm wrong.

As the car is going in for service on Monday, I was hoping that people may have any ideas what causes either, or both, of these faults to give an idea of what to look for? It's an 08 Suzuki Swift GL, 1.3 petrol.

Thanks for reading!

I have an elderly (12 years) spaniel who had a bad strain or tear to the muscle around her shoulder 5 years ago, which has left her with a weakness there and causes her to become lame at times, generally if she overdoes things on exercise; this may be where arthritis has set in.

Wondered if anyone could suggest (from personal or professional experience) an effective non-prescription supplement or treatment (maybe natural?) to ease this, I have tried Joint Aid and Yumove which are quite highly recommended but haven't really noticed a difference. At the moment she has Previcox painkillers when she goes lame, which certainly help it to pass, but it would be nice if she could be on something permanently that actually improves the condition in general, rather than just treating the lameness when it occurs.

Thanks for reading, hopefully someone may have some suggestions! Any pointers to websites etc detailing what to look for would also be appreciated. Vet's advice has been not to worry too much about the limp and continue to exercise her as normal, as she has a heart murmur and keeping her heart healthy is the priority, but I'd like to find something that can make her more comfortable.