Yes, it probably would help to break down your posts into different subjects so we can answer your questions more easily.
I am going to address the feeding issue: I think each dog's ability to put on/lose weight varies so all one can do is generalize and then you must adjust according to what you think Kim needs. I have a 14 week old puppy right now. He was pretty thin when I picked him up but I kept on feeding him three times a day, one cup of adult kibble at each meal. At one meal he would get a tablespoon of cottage cheese, and at another a tablespoon of yogurt, and at the third I would give him a little canned food, which is mostly water anyway but added some tasty gravy to the rather dry kibble. Besides doing a growth spurt he has also put on weight and while he is still not as fat as my puppies in the past, he looks pretty good and I think it is just his type, long and lean. I now only give the yogurt and cottage cheese a couple of times a week rather than daily. There are some good low calorie dog foods on the market now. I don't know what you can get in Australia, but I am feeding California Natural and Innova. I know Innova produces a low calorie kibble. It sounds like you are adding a lot of goodies to Kim's diet. If you add, then you must subtract from the kibble so he gets the same amount each meal.
Rather than give him a big meal and then two small ones, or one big meal and one small one, I would split the total amount into two equal parts. The reason for feeding smaller meals rather than one big one is to avoid bloat. These dogs are deep chested and bloat is something every RR owner is very much aware of. Feeding smaller amounts more often helps the digestive system not to be overloaded.
I had a grandfather who sounds just like Alan. He could never resist a "hungry dog" and would always sneak tidbits off his plate. At the time we had a Golden Retriever that my aunt was showing and she was constantly after him to stop feeding David because he was getting so fat! His response was 'he's hungry". Sure! David knew all the buttons to push. My husband is also a little like that and feels he has to save something from his plate for the dogs. As a result they all sit at his feet as he eats and they always get rewarded. On the other hand I can eat quite happily without a drooling dog as they know they will get nothing from me at the table, though they are allowed to sit by the dishwasher after the meal and lick the plates!
If you feel you can control Kim with a Flexi OK, but most people feel they don't have the control that a 6ft leather leash can give. Have you thought of a harness and check cord like they use for tracking. That would give him plenty of room to roam and you would have a 50ft cord to reel him in if needed.
Caroline
Caro,
I'll take what you say about two equal sized meals to heart. I knew about bloat and about the torsion of the gut because of the deep chests (or are they the same thing?). I had thought of a larger meal in the morning so (once they'd done a few hours of digesting)they could then spend the rest of the day working off the calories, turning them into muscle rather than the fat they would turn into if eaten just before bedtime. But I don't want either of them getting bloat/torsion, so I'll let Alan know two divide it equally.
The new girl Gypsy is a good weight, much leaner than Kim and therefore much quicker and lighter on her feet when they're chasing each other on the beach. She looked scrawny when she arrived, because she'd been doing no exercise having no-one to play with or take her out, but 6 days of playing with Kim has already put some very visible muscle on her and she looks great. They really work each other out down the beach, having running battles for hundreds of metres, and Kim is now starting to lose a little weight and become even more muscular thanks to the great deal of exercise she gives him.
Training them is simpler than I had expected. Kim's a slow learner and Gypsy's a fast learner but late starter, so we're working on the same things with both, and the atmosphere in the house is so much more contented (Kim not chewing or biting in frustration; she's the only distraction he wants and needs) that, whilst it's not perfect, it's workable and could be a great deal worse.
He wears a harness (a Gentle Leader so I can get some leverage and control over his 26" height/85 lb weight and tugboat strength), but I've never heard of a check cord. If it needs to be reeled in manually, it sounds like hard work and a recipe for tangles. But we're about to change to a Cujo leash with a two-way rotating attachment so we can take the dogs out together without both of us needing to be there with a dog each, and that will be a little springy but not extendable, and it will be a lot shorter. That's for their morning constitutional; in the afternoon they tear around up the northern end of the beach, right up away from the north 4WD entrance if the tide's right so we can drive up there in the 4WD. I've got some wonderful footage I haven't managed to put up on YouTube of them body-slamming each other, rearing up together like stallions, rolling and tumbling in the sand, ambushing each other, charging through the shallows of the surf etc. They look so alive and both are fitter and sleep really well :-). We could never exercise Kim like that by throwing sticks, or even with a bicycle.
Lachlan
