tarielle_au

I lost one of my beautiful dogs last week and still have her best mate at home with me.

I decided to get out and about on the weekend so I took my dog to the beach and the next day we went for a nice walk along a river and had lunch together.

We had a great time but today I feel so guilty and sad because my other dog should have been with us.

I want to really spoil my other dog at the moment but on the other hand I don't feel it's right.

Is my guilt a normal part of losing my other dog?

I lost one of my dogs this week due to advanced kidney failure. She was an old dog and I understand that things like this can happen. I keep thinking that if I had done a yearly blood and urine test we may have picked it up earlier and given her a chance of treatment. I guess in hind sight everything is possible.

I still have a 9 year old dog at home and I'm wondering if I should get these tests done once or twice a year as a course of her overall health checks.

Does anyone else do this for their dog and how regularly?

Should I start now considering she is already 9 years of age?

After losing my beautiful dog yesterday I have decided that I would like to have her cremated so I can keep her ashes.

I have chosen a lovely wooden box to keep them in but I'm having trouble with some nice words to put on the plaque.

So far I've come up with these:

I'll hold you in my heart until I hold you in heaven.

In my heart you will forever be, with angel wings please wait for me.

I'm not sure if those sound a bit corny. I want something nice but something different than the typical "faithful friend" thing.

Any ideas would be much appreciated.

I found out this afternoon that my beautiful baby girl has kidney failure. She's 15.5 years old and my first Jack Russell. I know she has had a good long life and I have loved her dearly. I have to call the vet in the morning to make the appointment but plan to spend most of the morning with my baby. I am so upset. She has stopped eating and I don't want her to suffer any more. I know it's the right thing to do but it's tearing my heart out. For anyone that's been through this, how did you spend your time with your beloved dog before saying goodbye? I would like to take my baby for a slow walk at her favorite place and then maybe just cuddle with her. I'm just feeling very lost right now.

My little girl is 9.5 years old and still has the energy of a puppy. I love being active with her but lately I think I have been over doing the exercise. She gets very sore muscles and has been to the vet for some acupuncture which really helps her a lot. We go for daily walks and I throw the ball for her a lot too. Lots of running and jumping. Should I tone down the amount of exercise or change the type of exercise for her? Just how much exercise does a nearly 10 year old need every day?

I have a nearly 16 year old female Jack Russell and in the last week she has developed a cough that I haven't heard from her before.

She has had problems over her lifetime with reverse sneezing but this is something different.

We have had kennel cough in our household with our Labrador 2-3 times but it's not that either. She never caught the kennel cough from our lab on any of those occasions and we haven't had it recently.

I'm starting to get worried about her. The cough is very on and off and sounds like she's choking on something but nothing seems to come up and there is nothing stuck in her throat.

She has never had any allergies.

She eats very well and is on a healthy diet, she sleeps very well, she still comes on walks with me and our other dogs too. Overall she is still in very good health. Last week she was at the vet for teeth cleaning, under anaesthetic and came through all of that perfectly okay.

I'm going to get her back to the vet for a check up in a few days time. In the meantime, I wanted to get some feedback from the DS if anyone has had an older dog start coughing suddenly and what the reason was. Should I be overly concerned at this point?

I have weak muscles in my lower back and want to start some strengthening exercises. I'm sick of waking up with an aching back every day.

I have a kettle bell that I haven't used yet and I've heard that it would be good for building some strength in my back. The kettle bell I have is only a few kilos in weight so not super heavy.

I'm wondering if I should start off slow with a dead lift squat instead of swinging the thing. I'm almost scared of the swing itself in case I make my back pain worse.

Any tips would be much appreciated.

Can someone please explain to me why some dog training schools have a stand for examination as part of the obedience class.

I have a dog that does not like to be touched by other people she doesn't know and we have barely been able to get her to stand still just to be petted.

Next week we are going up a class and I know the stand for examination will become more involved with the trainer wanting to not only pet her but touch her legs, tummy etc.

My dog barely lets the vet do that and sometimes she even turns around and snaps when the vet touches her in the wrong spot. She has a few issues with sore muscles from time to time and I think the irritation stems from that.

Basically, we don't have a hope of passing a class where the stand for examination becomes more involved and I'm not sure what I should do.

After many years I believe I have found out that my Jack Russell is a cross with a Blue Heeler.

I bought her as a Jack Russell as a pup and it wasn't until she got older that all her spots started coming out. Guess I got duped there.

She looks more like a Jack Russell than a Blue Heeler and I know quite a bit about Jack Russells as I also own a pure breed Jack Russell but I know nothing about the Blue Heeler breed and can't seem to find much on the internet about the breed as a cross.

My girl doesn't have many typical Jack Russell traits so I would really like to know more about the Blue Heeler temperament etc which would probably explain a lot about her.

Can anyone help me with more information on this particular cross breed please or on Blue Heelers.

Can anyone help me with this problem.

I have a large red pot that sits on a saucer and I keep getting a yellow crusting on the saucer when I water the plant that sits in there.

I have a feeling that it may have come from the last time I added fertilizer to the pot but that was about 6 months ago. I water the pot plant about once a week and still can't seem to flush out whatever is causing this crusting.

When I water I let the saucer fill up and overflow (it's a fairly big pot) but the excess is spilling on to my deck. If it was nice clean water (like my other pots) then I wouldn't care but whatever the residual is in the water then dries and I am even getting the crusting on my deck as well as the saucer.

It comes off if I scrub with an outdoor brush with water.

Has anyone seen this before?

I have a 1996 Toyota Corolla and in the past week have noticed that the overdrive light is no longer coming on. The overdrive light is normally always on when the overdrive is not engaged.

I had a look in my manual thinking that it's a fuse but it says nothing about the overdrive light at all.

Is it a fuse somewhere or is my car telling me something more sinister is going on?

I want to refinance my home loan but I have a credit card to pay off and I want to close that account which in turn would make my credit rating look better for the refinancing.

I have 2 options.

I have enough money available to me in my mortgage offset account that I can use now to pay the credit card off or I can leave that there and save up over the next month to pay off the credit card in full.

If I take the amount in my offset account to pay for the credit card then my loan amount will be a little bit higher as it's not offsetting the outstanding balance anymore.

I am not sure if I should use that money now and close the credit card account asap or if I should wait another month until I have it paid it off from my savings.

Which option would be better from the banks point of view?

I have bought some lupin seeds that I would like to plant in my garden this year. What time of year do the seeds go in and how deeply should they be planted?

I don't have them in a packet so no instructions.

I've tried google but all I get is lupin crops for food. Not very helpful.

I was wearing my hoodie and it got splashed with cooking oil. I have put it through a normal wash cycle and the stain is still there.

Will a normal stain treating spray work or should I try something else to remove it?

I have an orchard growing in sphagnum moss under my back pergola. The pergola has clear laser light overhead and I presume it is getting enough light there. I only water it when the sphagnum moss has dried out.

I have had the plant for 3 years now and it has not flowered during that time. I am also concerned that some of the leaves are getting spots and turning a purple colour.

I only fertilize the plant in spring and summer.

Any comments on what I'm doing wrong would be much appreciated. Link is to pics of my orchid.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/21894271@N08/sets/721...

I once played a game called Zombie city on an android phone and loved it.

Does Apple have a game that is similar to the android one?

Apple have one named Zombie City but it's very different to the android one as far as I can see.