Buster Jones

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Welcome \| Buster \| Achievements \| Photos \| Our Friends \|		Name: Buster Show name: Southerly Buster DOB: 4^th November 2001 Nicknames: Little man, Snap snap, buddy to name a few. Breed: Border Collie x Kelpie with some sight hound we think… Favorite Food: Fish

	The beginning When Rick started a new job in January 2000 his head office was located next to a pet store. Shortly after starting he came home and told me about these two boy Border Collie cross’ puppies that had arrived. A week or so passed and he told me that one of them had been sold. One afternoon Rick picked me up after work and we went back to his head office, as he needed to finish off some work. So I went over to the pet store to see if the little puppy was still there. He was. Rick continued to talk about ‘Buster’ as Rick had now started calling him and I asked Rick if he wanted him… he said, “no he’ll find a home”. I saw him again that week and he looked a little bigger but still very cute and I said to Rick he would make a nice agility dog…. light framed and seemed to have a bright energetic way about him. Seven weeks after Rick started to talk about Buster we went to see him again. This time I said to Rick if he sits when I open the cage we’d take him home. He sat. We bought him home. It’s funny, when I saw Buster in the pet store I saw a nice dog with loads of potential and really nice markings… when I look at his first pictures I see a dog that was really under weight with a poor coat and clearly full of worms. You see what you want to see and I could just see his potential… pity I couldn’t see the hip dysplasia. Well by this stage Buster was 14 weeks old so it was straight off to puppy school. Rick took him the first five weeks because I was studying at night and couldn’t make it. On the last week I went to class and 10 minutes into the class I could see we had a problem. Buster was food aggressive… he had a Sha Pei and a Pit Bull in his class (nice puppies don’t get me wrong) but Buster even took them on if any of them came near his food. He’d growl and snarl… I said to Rick “how long has this been going on????” and he said, “oh he’s been getting worse every week.” Well our puppy school teacher suggested we go and see a behaviorist and that if he continues to get worse we may have to put him down. I contacted the behaviorist and it was going to cost us $400 for the appointment… we couldn’t afford that at the time. I couldn’t believe we had seen none of this at home… until I really watched what was going on at dinner time… he would arch over his food just incase Taylor looked at it. But we had taught manner’s around food with her so she would finish her dinner and leave the room, which is why we had never noticed the behavior before. Taylor couldn’t stand him until one night about three months after we had him they started to play together and didn’t stop playing chasings for about 45min and then he crashed and they started to form a bit of a bond. Well things continued to get worse, he would not come when called unless Taylor did, would bark at anything and was basically not a very nice puppy, well certainly not what we had had in mind for our second dog anyway. As with most things people started to notice this behavior and started to give advice. Things like alpha roll him etc…etc…. Well I did end up alpha rolling him and the look on his face I will never forget… he was so scared and at the same time looked so heart broken… almost like he didn’t know why he did what he did but that I had just broken his heart. I cried for two hours after this happened and vowed to never do it again but to find out how this little guy ticked. So I contacted our puppy trainer again to see if she had any other suggestions. She recommended we go and visit Steve Austin from Hanrob Kennels at Heathcoat. So we made an appointment and went for our 30 min private lesson. Steve had asked that we all come including Taylor. Steve asked me to handle Buster and Rick held Taylor’s lead. After about 1 minute Steve said Buster thinks that Taylor is the leader of the pack and that Rick and I just provide the food when it is required. Steve just showed us a few leadership skills that didn’t require a check chain or punishing our little boy. So home we went with a few positive skills in our tool box. Well things did start to improve though I think the turning point was when Buster was about nine months old and we had gone over to Rick’s Mum and Dad’s place for dinner. Buster was mucking around and annoying Taylor and Sophie (Rick’s parents Cocker Spaniel) and was basically just being a little bugger. So I scooped him up and laid him gently on his back and started to stoke his belly. He fought for a couple of seconds and then I think he realised that it didn’t feel to bad. After about 15 minutes he feel to sleep in my arms on his back and stayed there for an hour and a half. When he woke up he was a different dog… some may think I’m full of bullst but he had a look on his face as if to say ok now I understand that you are going to look after me. We haven’t looked back from then. We did some more group lessons with Steve and then Buster started his agility training with Liz. Buster has had a lot of trouble learning to weave and over Christmas of 2004 he started to become very lame. Several vets, chiro’s, physio’s you name it looked over him but couldn’t find anything. So in September 2005 (I know it’s a long gap but he would get better then go lame and everyone said it wasn’t anything nasty) I asked that his hips be x-rayed. The night before Taylor had her ADY final we were told that Buster had hip dysplasia and would never compete in agility again. We were heart broken… not because we had selected him to do agaility but because he loved his agility so much. When we told our friends a few of which are vet’s one of them suggested we put him onto Cosequin. Well it’s six months on and apart from when he gets up out of his crate at night to get onto the King size dog bed (our bed!) he hasn’t limped. He looks great and has had a few runs on the agility circuit and I have been doing some light training in the back yard. Rick actually runs Buster and when they get to the start line Buster always has this stupid look on his face like oh cool here we go Dad. He is our clown and for our friends and family that know him know that he is a lovely dog to live with. He gives the worlds best cuddles and often thinks he is a lap dog. He has a few little issues that will always be apart of him but we know what they are and we manage them when required, but they are improving and are nothing major. Taylor and Buster are really good mates. When we wake up in the morning they get very excited to see each other and us and will normally have a rumble on the bed if there is time. So while Buster doesn’t have a huge list of achievements as far as agility goes he has a huge heart and the fact that he is still with us is probably his biggest achievement of all. 2006 Well two of Buster’s little issues seem to be getting even better. You see Buster never really liked puppies… thinking back this may have been because they jumped on his hips which hurt him during in play and thus he connected puppies with pain. Busters God mother Leanne got herself a King Charles Cavalier Spaniel, Mia, so Buster has had to learn to cope with her as Leanne baby sits our dogs when we go away. Well they are starting to be come great friends and since Mia’s been around other puppies that come to say hello to Buster get a wagging tail and a sniff where as before they’d get a small growl and a stare. The second this that had improved is Busters confidence around kids. My nephew (Christopher) has come to visit us a few weekends in a row while his Dad (Robert, Rick’s brother) has come over to give us a hand with the garage. Well Buster is starting to realize that little people will throw toy’s all day if his Mamma (me) would let them. I even had Chris playing the sit tug sit game with him so now when he sees Chris he starts to wagg his whole body not just his tail. We haven’t done much agility this year but Buster will be competing in the ANKC Nationals in June 2006. 2007** Well I'm about to send off my entries for the first trials back since having Kyla. So I'll let you know how we go .